What do you expect when you see something labelled as
a full LP, and not an EP or single? Is it only about the length? Is it about
how many songs there are? Is it about artistic intent? Let’s consider one of
the most famous short albums in history, Slayer’s towering masterpiece, Reign In Blood. At a svelte 28 minutes,
it’s significantly shorter than the average LP, which I usually think of as
being around 45-60 minutes in length. To me, usually, I think of sub-half hour
releases as being EPs. But that’s not really an accurate metric, the more I
think about it. Reign In Blood is
short, but it doesn’t feel short. It’s a wholly satisfying experience—adding more
songs would dull its skull shattering power, and removing any songs to make it
an EP would have similar detrimental effects. Why, then, is it that I feel like
Dog Poison doesn’t qualify as a true
LP? It can’t be because it’s short, because as we’ve established, that isn’t a
fair criterion.
Let’s touch on a few other points and maybe we’ll
figure it out along the way. Released mere months after Help, Dog Poison came out
on September 28th, 2009. I’ve long assumed it was an EP of rough
demos based on its production style and length, but it’s very clearly described
as a finished LP online. Similar to Help,
it’s not on the Oh Sees Bandcamp page and I couldn’t find any information about
who plays on it. Wikipedia seems to suggest it was recorded solely by John
Dwyer, though given how much flute is on the album this clearly isn’t true. Strangely,
the Castle Face website says that Dog
Poison came out “after Warm Slime”
which also, clearly, isn’t true. You’d think Dwyer’s personal record label
would get that kind of easy detail right but then again, they have a lot of good
drugs in California. If anybody can contact him and get me hired as his
discography guardian, I’d appreciate it. I don’t mind working weekends and I
bother to do even the smallest research!
Every Oh Sees album seems to have its defenders and
fans, though with Dog Poison I’ve
gotten the impression it has the least amount of them all, with the exception
of the earliest OCS records. I also get the impression it’s a divisive release,
though unlike the similarly divisive Smote
Reverser, I haven’t seen anyone
say they outright love it or it’s in their top five favorite Oh Sees records. I’ve
never really liked Dog Poison; even when I was considering its quality based
on my assumption that it was an EP of rough demos/unfinished songs, I still didn’t like it. In fact, it’s the
only Oh Sees album I ever bought on vinyl and traded it back in to the local
record store. Shocking, no? I simply don’t have a collector’s mentality in the
same way some people do. If I don’t like an album, no matter how rare or
expensive it is, I trade it in and let someone else enjoy it. Pay it forward,
and all that.
OK, so where does that leave us regarding Dog Poison’s status as a non-LP,
but-no-really-it-is-a-LP-you-guys? Time to break it down. It’s short and it feels short. Just as I think the two
bonus tracks on most releases of Master’s
Bedroom make it feel overlong and weaken the listening experience, there
isn’t enough of Dog Poison for it to
satisfy. What little music there is comes off as things Dwyer threw together in
an afternoon when he was bored at home. The lo-fi production style does the
songs no favors, muting and muddling the sound such that even when listened to
on headphones I can’t tell if it’s Dwyer or Brigid Dawson doing the back-up
vocals. It further reinforces the notion that the entire album is slapdash and
rough around the edges, but not in the pleasing way that Castlemania is more lo-fi and rough than other Oh Sees releases. I’ve
never been the biggest fan of Castlemania
but it has something to it that I uncover and enjoy more each time I have
revisit it. It’s the one I’m most looking forward to doing a retrospective post
on, whereas Dog Poison is something I’m
looking forward to being done with. It’s like a birthday party that is somehow
boring and depressing when you were expecting fun and entertaining.
Anyway, with far fewer songs than Castlemania, Dog Poison’s
weak tracks stand out more starkly, and the production does no favors. The
songwriting quality is poorer than it has been since the days of OCS—speaking of,
I find Dog Poison to be a regression
to the infantile pseudo-folk of those early releases. Other than the use of flute,
which is a fun novelty, the music and instrumental playing are frankly kind of
boring. Just when he was doing new and interesting things with electric
guitars, Dwyer goes back to the acoustic and has seemingly forgotten how to
play anything compelling on it other than it being used for rhythmic chording
and time keeping. I almost like ‘It’s Nearly Over’ and then that blown out
acoustic guitar punches through with no riff or hook or melody to it. All the
instruments seem to bleed into each other and get in each other’s way—‘The Fizz’
could be a fantastic garage rock track, if it didn’t sound like it was recorded
by the Mr. Mike Voice Changer/Tape Recorder from Toy Story….that was a quarter
mile way…that was also soggy from someone spilling their Guinness on it. I’m
exaggerating to make a point, of course. I need to make clear, lo-fi production
is fantastic when it’s used effectively and sympathetically—you can’t be a
Guided By Voices or Daniel Johnston fan if you can’t embrace tape hiss,
warping, and amateurish mixing/mastering. We know Dwyer has access to better
equipment so Dog Poison’s production
is a deliberate choice. A baffling choice that doesn’t work, but a deliberate
choice nonetheless.
If it sounds like I hate Dog Poison, it’s only because I hold Oh Sees albums to such a high
standard. Even the releases that I don’t like as much as others have something
unique and/or endearing about them. So, no, I don’t hate Dog Poison. It’s just…inessential and kind of pointless to listen
to it anymore. Oh Sees have 20+ albums to their name(s), to say nothing of all
the EPs (which Dog Poison should have
been!) and singles. Why waste your time with this dull, dreary, poorly recorded
mess?
Alternate/Hot Take/Spinal-Tap-Reference-Review: Dog Poison? More like Dog Shit!
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