Oh Sees - Smote Reverser

The Quietus

With another year comes another album from Oh Sees, led by the ever-restless John Dwyer, and with it comes another stylistic detour to add to their touchstones of garage rock and psychedelia. After the explosive ramalama of 2017’s Orc and the pastoral Memory Of A Cut Off Head a few months later, it should probably come as no surprise that Oh Sees have set sail into proggier waters.

What this means in practical terms is that John Dwyer has fallen for the charms of the nimble-fingered and unrestrained works of Jon Lord and Keith Emerson; the resulting album is an hour-long trawl of sprawling and frequently unwieldy music. A band has got to keep itself interested, especially one that’s ploughed a very particular furrow for nigh-on 20 years, but all too often throughout Smote Reverser it feels as if Oh Sees are playing with forces they can’t control.

It all starts off so promisingly. The opening one-two of ‘Sentient Oona’ and ‘Enrique El Cobrador’ deploys their newly added organ to stunning effect, particularly on the latter track. The component parts of the band’s dual drum attack, deep bass groove and some wonderfully squally guitar flourishes from Dwyer add up to a deeply satisfying whole, one that augurs well for the rest of the album. So it goes for the utterly infectious and hook-laden ‘C’ and the fabulously demented ‘Overthrown’.

Alas, Oh Sees then elect to go for feel over form. The result is some tiresome jamming: the biggest offender is the 12-minute trawl ‘Anthemic Aggressor’, a shapeless marathon of indulgence that’s like a watching a fish with one fin swimming in circles. Similarly, album closers ‘Flies Bump Against Glass’ and ‘Beat Quest’ are an experiment in search of a hypothesis with noodling that feels way longer than it actually is. By the album’s end, they seem to be stuck in a cul-de-sac. The next album, one hopes, will come along soon and help them out.

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In comparison to Memory's fairly mellow, almost folk rock-esque vibe, Smote Reverser sees the band go in completely the opposite direction, a phenomenon any Dwyer devotee is certainly used to by now. While the album's first single 'Overthrown' and accompanying artwork had some wondering if Dwyer and co and written a full-on heavy metal album, and in places that is not exactly wrong, the reality is this is the band at their strongest psychedelic selves. 'Overthrown' for example while one of the heaviest tracks the band has ever put out, it also possesses a Lightning Bolt style essence to it, helped in no small part due to Oh Sees dual drummers Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone, though amusingly they do the work of exactly one Brian Chippendale.

Oh Sees have always maintained an ability to turn a track into an aggressively groovy jam, but it is especially apparent here as many tracks are willing to fly off into space at any moment, none more so than the album's centrepiece, the 12-minute plus 'Anthemic Aggressor' though this is balanced out by the far more focused 'Abysmal Urn' following right after. As usual, Dwyer (& Dawson) are responsible for an incredible amount of memorable melody lines and riffs that almost seem super-human to produce on such a consistent level. 'Enrique El Cobrador' and 'C' for instance manage to expertly update the late-Sixties/early Seventies Californian psychedelia into modern times. Meanwhile the slow-burning 'Last Piece' and 'Moon Bog' ground the album to something below hyper-speed for a welcome few moments.

Dwyer's consistency over the past two decades is not to be sniffed at. His incredible ability to keep his well-worn sound stay fresh is no easy task, especially when one is averaging two albums a year. Sure, much of it comes down to writing and recording improvised jam sessions, but there's also a focus and flair that only Dwyer seems to maintain within the modern day psychedelic rock genre, no less their absolute must-see powerhouse live performances, which are really the best way to experience the band. By the time of Smote Reverser's finale 'Beat Quest', it's plain difficult to not be impressed by this insanely talented band yet again – may their reign long continue.