Oh Sees Retrospective #27: Smote Reverser

A wise man once sang, “people change/but you know some people never do.” The paradox of Oh Sees has always been that they're always the same and they're always changing. What this means is that you may go on a two or three album stretch without one you thoroughly enjoy. You may wish they'd return to certain styles that were more prevalent on previous records. You may also ride the waves and change with them, getting at least something out of every release. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may...whoops, sorry. Couldn't help myself. Let's talk about Smote Reverser.

Unleashed from the depths on August 17^th, 2018, Smote Reverser was the true beginning of the band steering into heavier prog rock, metal, and jam band influences. It showcased the core modern-era foursome of John Dwyer, Paul Quattrone, Dan Rincon, and Tim Hellman, supplemented by (soon to join as a full time member) Tomas Dolas on keyboards, vocals from Brigid Dawson, and um...'marching boots' by recording engineers Enrique Tena Padilla and Mario Ramirez. There is a credit given to Heather Lockie of 'sampled viola' on 'Last Peace', though I'm not sure if this means it's a sample taken from a recording she did or if they had her play in the studio and sampled that. I'm not familiar with her credited groups on Discogs though her website reveals she's a multi-discipline artist and creator, so big ups to her. Anyway, hardcore completionists and/or record collectors will have their hands full with this album, as it saw four different color variants in addition to the basic black edition. Now, I know not everybody is a fan of the cover art but I think it's dope as hell. I would totally put it on the side of my van. I was psyched when the creature reappeared in the 'Poisoned Stones' music video. It's worth noting that the artist behind the cover, Matt Stawicki, is a longtime fantasy/scifi artist, who has done a ton of book covers as well as (of great personal interest to me) a couple Magic: The Gathering cards.

Smote Reverser is an interesting album to end this retrospective series on, for a number of reasons. First, from reading/watching reviews and forum posts, it seems to be a very divisive record. It has a fairly even split between people who think it's one of the Oh Sees's best and started them in a great new direction and people who think it's overly indulgent and has more bad songs than good. Second, I'm sure people are wondering why I'm not also doing Face Stabber, which is a valid question. As stated in the previous retrospective, my opinion of it hasn't change since I wrote my initial review, and since I have nothing new to say about it seven months later, there isn't much point. Lastly, it's an interesting one to end on because Smote Reverser is one of the releases that my opinion changed the most about since I first heard it. You might say I was smitten and then it was reversed.


Sorry, I know, that was really reaching. Let's dig in.

The first couple listens, I loved it and thought it was a masterpiece. I understood the complaints by people who didn't like it, though I chalked that up to the fact that they didn't vibe with the direction Oh Sees were going in. As time has gone on, though, I see Smote Reverser as more of a mixed bag that averages out to 'merely good.' I quite like some tracks, while others are either underdeveloped or overbaked. We may as well start with 'Anthemic Aggressor', since at twelve minutes long it's the most remarkable track on the record. And I mean “remarkable” in the literal sense, that there's a lot to remark about. Now, I don't dislike 'Anthemic Aggressor' because it's so long. I'm on record as a huge fan of jam bands like Phish improvising for twenty minutes or more, and I'm a founding member of U.H.B.: United 'Henchlock' Boosters. No, to me 'Anthemic Aggressor' is bad because it's simultaneously underdeveloped and overbaked. It's essentially just an instrumental jam session that isn't particularly good. The soloing is often dull and uninspired, and some of the sounds are grating and atonal in a bad away. You can find much better examples on Face Stabber and previously released live albums/tracks of this sort of improv. I also feel like the musical bedrock of the track is one of the weaker repetitive riffs/vamps Oh Sees have ever done. The drumming is spastic, and not in a good way, and the bass is so simplistic it's dull as unpolished shit. I feel like some of the issues I had with 'Warm Slime' are present here, though I'll remind you, I actually like 'Warm Slime', and I almost always skip 'Anthemic Aggressor' when I put the album on. While I'm throwing shade, allow me to darken the doorsteps of 'Enrique El Cobrador' and 'Nail House Needle Boys', two tracks that are pretty weak and forgettable. The latter features a drum/percussion break that is so mundane it almost has to be a joke.

The borderline-frustrating thing about Smote Reverser is that there's also a lot to love, things I want to take out of the shade and to hold up so they can shine in the sunlight. Overall I'm excited by the new metal/prog/jam band direction that Smote Reverser sailed toward. I also delight in Tomas Dolas; he brings a lot to the table and I'm glad he joined full-time after this album. I appreciate how prevalent keyboards have become in the current Oh Sees sound. More importantly, Smote Reverser has some of the band's best material. 'Beat Quest' is a fantastic closing song, emphasizing the dual drummers throughout its runtime and making for a much better drum showcase than the weak breakdown in 'Nail House Needle Boys.' Also have to give some love for the gooey keyboard/synths around the 2:45 mark, as well as how the track starts out melancholy and develops into a jubilant organ-led ending. The other bookend of the record, 'Sentient Oona', perfectly sets the atmosphere for the songs to come, with some great “ooh ooooh” backing vocals from Brigid Dawson and a whipsnap entry into the main riff before it cools down again. 'C', meanwhile, is like Red Lobster's Lobsterfest for people who love crunchy and boogie-ing 70s-inspired guitarwork. Perhaps the biggest surprise is 'Overthrown', which just stabs your face with its heaviness. Unless you have epilepsy, I highly recommend the video for 'Overthrown', especially with the lights off, and especially if you're enjoying some psychoactive substances.

Weak songs aside, I suspect I would still enjoy Smote Reverser as much as I did on first listen if Face Stabber didn't exist. It's hard not to look back on it as a warmup for Face Stabber. To me it does most of what this album does well and does it even better. I'm not at all saying Smote Reverser is retroactively irrelevant or not worth a listen. I have my issues with it, sure, but I still listen to it on a somewhat regular basis when I'm in the mood for Oh Sees. It's totally valid not to share the opinion that Face Stabber is a better version of Smote Reverser; it's got some really strong highlights as I discussed in the previous paragraph. The best comparison I can think of is that Smote Reverser is like taking several different food items from different cuisines and mixing them all together, whereas Face Stabber is like a carefully planned five course meal. It just has so much more variety in sounds and textures and ideas, and all of it works well together and flows nicely. Smote Reverser doesn't flow well, it's more of a stock market graph with ups and downs, screams and laughs.

Kind of like this retrospective series, really.

Oh Sees Retrospective #24: Orc

I have to be honest, when I first saw the announcement back in 2017 that the forthcoming Oh Sees record would be called Orc, I thought man, that's lazy as hell. This is a band with a series of excellent album titles—yes, I even like Drop for its varying meanings—and Orc just seemed arbitrary. Sure, Dwyer was turning up the fantasy influence in the lyrics and overall aesthetic of the band, but “Orc”? Really? Plain and simple “Orc”? Not even “Warrior Orc” or “Orcs Brew” or something? Well, perhaps this paring back of the title was a nod to the band changing their name to simply Oh Sees, dropping the Thee. As it turned out, while a couple listens of Orc won't sound so different from A Weird Exits/An Odd Entrances, there's more changes going on than the surface level name change and stripped back album title indicate.


Orc was released on August 25^th, 2017, and along with the band name shortening to Oh Sees, there were a couple other crucial changes. As discussed in the last retrospective, Ryan Moutinho quit the band two days before the release of An Odd Entrances, and in early 2017 Paul Quattrone took his slot, maintaining the dual drummer setup we've all come to love. This addition would also solidify the modern-era lineup (minus Tomas Dolas, who only became an official member after Smote Reverser). By the by, for those curious, Quattrone is always in the left stereo channel and Dan Rincon is always in the right. I'm assuming they kept this convention going forward though I don't recall if the liner notes continue to specify this. The other big change is that this is the first Oh Sees album not to have Chris Woodhouse as recording engineer/producer/collaborator, after a streak stretching all the way back to Sucks Blood in 2007. I'm sad to report I wasn't able to find any information explaining why Woodhouse stopped working with Oh Sees. Judging by his Discogs credits, he hasn't been very active in the last year or two. He even left The Dock recording studio he helped found. Hopefully nothing bad happened to him, or anyway, between him and Oh Sees. Anyway, this led Orc to be a production handled by the team of John Dwyer, Eric Bauer, Ty Segall, and Enrique Tena (who is referred to in Smote Reverser track 'Enrique El Cobrador', which means “Enrique the debt collector”). It's weird, I always forget Ty Segall worked on Orc. I'd think this would be a bigger deal to people but I don't remember anyone bringing it up or commenting on it. By 2017 Ty Segall was arguably more mainstream and popular than Oh Sees, yet none of the professional music magazine/website reviews made even the smallest fuss of his involvement.


To these ears, Orc is a slightly-more-modern sequel to Mutilator Defeated At Last. It's solid all the way through, has no weak tracks, and it's an across-the-board fan favorite. It also has a reputation as a dark/heavy album akin to Floating Coffin. This isn't completely deserved, at least musically. Yes, lyrically the album is pretty dark and heavy, a strange mix of almost self-consciously poetic turns of phrase and disturbing imagery, continuing the apocalyptic scifi/fantasy concepts of the last two records. For example, opener 'The Static God' is from the point of view of a self-destructive/masochistic character, trying to bum cigarettes and wondering aloud, “I'm leaning in/into the whip/does it satisfy me?” Not to mention there's a track called 'Cadaver Dog', for god's sake! Musically, the album is quite heavy though it does have more variety than Floating Coffin, so the reputation is only partly deserved. Before I get to said variety I should touch on the heaviness, as Orc has some of the band's most crunchy riffs and metal-tinged moments. 'Animated Violence' is one of the heaviest tracks of the modern-era, rivaled only by 'Face Stabber' or 'Heartworm.' However, this heaviness is leavened expertly with slower/calmer moments and songs, like the five minute long viola-led second section of 'Keys To The Castle' and the slow dance fantasia of 'Drowned Beast.' There's also the aptly named 'Cooling Tower', which sacrifices heaviness for grooviness, and has a churning/chugging up-and-down riff that reminds me a bit of both parts of 'Unwrap The Fiend.' Also, is it just me or does the drumming on this track really sound like Can circa Ege Bamyasi? They've been a huge influence on Oh Sees for years but the grooviness and repetition of the drumming on this track is absolutely out of Jaki Liebezeit's wheelhouse, specifically 'Vitamin C.'


The main difference that sets Orc apart from the previous few releases is that the songs are more dynamic and sectional. This is part of where the increased prog rock influence comes in. Sure, the songs being a bit longer than normal, overall, accounts for this feeling as well, but only partially. 'Nite Expo' and 'Keys To The Castle' both have a rather linear development instead of the usual pop song verse/chorus/verse, while 'Raw Optics' is the kind of solid album ending instrumental that you want to write home about. It's a classic 70s prog rock/acid rock track and I absolutely adore the drum solo section. It's a much more interesting and enjoyable version of the 'Drums' improvisation sections of the second set of Grateful Dead shows. This song, more than any other, points to the jammier direction of Smote Reverser and Face Stabber. While we're on the subject of instrumentals, it's worth noting that Orc has three of them, and two of them are back-to-back in the tracklisting, with the third coming one song later. In theory this risks backloading the album with samey sounding material, but Oh Sees have mastered so many styles of music and the dynamics of instrumental songwriting/jamming that they're among the most compelling songs on Orc.


Since I'm not going to do a retrospective on it, I want to briefly mention the Dead Medic EP. At only two tracks it's difficult to call it an EP though both tracks add up to 20 minutes, so maybe this is one time I need to stop being so pedantic and listen to the artist's intent. Near as I can tell the title track is an in-studio jam, with frenetic drumming and all kinds of psychedelic splurts and burbles going off like slow motion fireworks reflected on the surface of a lake. The other track is a cover of an old school Swedish band I won't even pretend to have heard of. Reminds me a bit of what I remember Amon Düül II sounding like, though I haven't listened to them in years so I recommend finding out for yourself.


As I don't have anything negative to say about Orc, I do want to also take the time to briefly detour to mention a truly terrible and insulting review of the album on Under The Radar. They gave it a ridiculously low 2/10 score, and that's whatever; I hate scoring systems, I haven't used them for years, and that's not why I was so bothered. Moreso I'm blinded by rage with the condescending tone and jabs at nerd culture in this useless, masturbatory excuse for a review. I don't know what it is with the “professional” music press in the UK always being huge pretentious assholes in general, and especially about psychedelic and prog rock music. If you guys sometimes disagree strongly with what I write, prepare yourselves for this bullshit: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/oh_sees_orc/


OK, detours are over. Given the context of the records to follow, you can look at Orc as being the svelte and focused version of what Smote Reverser and Face Stabber mutated the sound into. By this I mean that Orc lacks most of the jammy/noodly stuff that turns some people off of the latest two albums. This isn't to say Orc is a pop record with short songs, far from it. A better explanation is that it trims all the fat and the sprawl and only leaves the best, most essential parts in these songs. Myself, I love the fat and the sprawl, too. Sometimes I want 'Nite Expo' and sometimes I want 'Henchlock', just as sometimes Oh Sees want to title an album “Orc” and not “The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In.” What else is there to say? You know Orc, you love Orc. Zug zug.

Oh Sees Retrospective #22: A Weird Exits

There's a question I've been grappling with since the start of this retrospective series, something I've been putting off answering until the time came. And it's this: can you talk about A Weird Exits without also constantly talking about An Odd Entrances? In some sense this retrospective series is about examining each Oh Sees release in a sort of contradictory manner. What I mean is, I try to consider them on their own merits but also as part of the greater discography. With these twin releases, though, the waters become ever more muddied. I mean, An Odd Entrances is its own thing yet it's also leftovers that didn't work with the Weird Exits songs...yet it's not long enough to be a full album...yet it can reasonably be judged on that basis because it feels like a complete, intended experience and not like a leftovers collection. It's complicated, is what I'm saying. For whatever it's worth, I am going to try to judge the two releases on their own strengths and weaknesses and not get sidetracked by comparing 'Jammed Exit' to 'Jammed Entrance' or the two parts of 'Unwrap The Fiend.' There's enough to cover with A Weird Exits as it is, so I'll probably save most of that for the retrospective of An Odd Entrances since I won't have as much background info to go over.


Released on August 12^th, 2016, A Weird Exits is the first studio album to feature the foursome lineup with two drummers. Now, sure, Oh Sees did have two drummers on Carrion Crawler/The Dream and on a smattering of other songs over the years, but they never stuck with it as they have since 2015. A Weird Exits (hereafter simply Weird) and An Odd Entrances (hereafter simply Odd) are culled from the same batch of recordings. According to an interview with drummer Ryan Moutinho (http://www.thereprise.org/features/2017/2/22/thee-oh-sees-ryan-moutinho), it was a marathon three or four day session, after which John Dwyer finished/mixed the rest on his own. The music is more collaborative in spirit than Mutilator Defeated At Last because the band had been touring consistently for more than a year and they were jamming and coming up with song ideas on the road. Anyway, while I'm pleased that the last few releases have had no confusion when it comes to release dates and if they're an EP or not, we do have two topics to hash out before we proceed. First, what is the excuse for the lack of consistency of the title of 'Crawl Out From The Fall Out'?! It's listed as 'Crawl Out Into The Fall Out' on the vinyl record and on Wikipedia/Discogs but the Oh Sees Bandcamp and Spotify pages have it as 'Crawl Out From The Fall Out.' Now, you might be saying, it's a minor detail, who cares? Well, crawling out into something is rather different from crawling out from something. The next time you're near a burning building tell me which you'd rather be doing, if given the choice between the two. The second and more important issue: the liner notes mention something about an organ line lifted from an album which in turn lifted it from Jimi Hendrix. I did my usual diligent research and figured out it's 'The Axis.' The organ line on it is either a sample or a recreation of part of a track by Solo Organ. The part in question comes around the 8:00 mark of the second track from this album: https://soloorgan.bandcamp.com/album/atom-heart-and-beyond-the-infinite The artist's real name is Douglas Katelus though this is incorrectly spelled as Doug Catelis on the sleeve, because nobody cares about the details except me, I guess. Again, you may be saying, minor detail, who cares? Well, when it comes to crediting people for the work they did, it isn't a minor detail because it can lead to issues with songwriting credits and royalty payments. Johnathan Dryer, err I mean John Dwyer should be ashamed.


Whew OK, now that I got all of that out of my system...


Weird continues the trend started by Mutilator Defeated At Last, putting even more emphasis on psych/prog/metal and further scaling back the garage rock. Make no mistake, Weird is still heavy at times and knows when it's time to rock but the overall atmosphere is not as frenetic and manic. Compare 'I Was Denied' from Warm Slime to 'Ticklish Warrior' to get an idea of what I mean. Now, I rarely mention Oh Sees lyrics because they're usually just window dressing and are often hard to make out without looking them up online. I want to briefly touch on them for this retrospective because it was around this time in the band's discography that (lyrically) marked the start of John Dwyer's further descent into conceptual scifi/fantasy worldbuilding/story telling. It's interesting that this album has two instrumentals, thereby putting more emphasis on the words when they do appear. Anyway, 'Dead Man's Gun' and 'Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 2' are filled with stuff about nuclear war and surviving in the post-apocalypse and all kinds of crazy shit, to put it bluntly. Suddenly the video for Face Stabber track 'Poisoned Stones' seems less like it's meant to be a joke—perhaps, like the Gizzverse, Oh Sees have their own universe? Ehhhh no, let's not go there.


Some people truly love Weird and Odd and consider them a peak. They aren't quite up there for me though I do understand. Smote Reverser really set them into a slightly different direction that not everyone is down with. Though I don't outright love Weird or Odd, there is a lot to enjoy. Superficially speaking, the way the two releases play off each other with the album titles is really clever, and I think the always underrated Robert Beatty nailed it with his art for the covers. It's undeniable that Weird has some classic tracks that are live set staples, such as the meaty 'Plastic Plant' with its drum breakdown near the end, and the throttling 'Gelatinous Cube', which has one of the coolest introductions of any Oh Sees song. In fact while I'm piling up the praise, can we all take the time and appreciate Tim Hellman? He's the unsung hero of Oh Sees history—I've said before that I do love Petey Dammit! but having a dedicated bassist does wonders for the modern-era sound. I love the warm/round tone of Hellman's bass, and as a musician he has that indefinable ability to be both rock solid and groovy as hell. If you don't have access to speakers or headphones with decent bass response, you're missing out on a lot. Similarly I want to praise John Dwyer's guitar sound and playing style on Weird and Odd. I've been a big fan of psychedelic delay/echo/reverb effects since first hearing the trumpet wails during the opening of Miles Davis's 'Bitches Brew', and I think Dwyer really started to give me the goodness during the modern-era of Oh Sees. Every time I hear the beginning tune-up/jam part of 'You Will Find It Here' my third eye opens and I can see for miles. But that's on Odd and we're not talking about that yet!


The flaw of Weird that brings it down in my estimation is that it ends with 'The Axis.' I don't like anything about this song. Dwyer's vocals are so affected and hokey that they're distracting. It's a terrible choice for closing track not simply because it's bad but also that it doesn't fit in with the tone of the rest of the record. It feels like an inside joke that got out of hand, an anti-love song/breakup song with lame lyrics. It ends up being further ruined by Dwyer's redlined guitar and irritating noise. It smacks of listening to too many Dave Fridmann produced albums from the mid 2000s, all blown out and clipping and distorted and ruining what would otherwise be good albums. For example, listen to Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! and The Woods by Sleater-Kinney. I loved the latter at the time but it hasn't held up for me, production-wise. It's the classic issue of subtraction by addition: does this production style add anything to make the songs better? I'd argue it's a distracting gimmick that only works for some specific records (Embryonic by the Flaming Lips is an example of when it works well). Anyhow, I'm all for experiments but 'The Axis' is a failure and I have no idea what Oh Sees were going for.


Let's not end on a negative, though. 'The Axis' aside, Weird is a solid entry in the Oh Sees discography. To me it's the sort of album in a band's history that is above average and certain fans will end up adoring it yet when measured against everything else it just isn't as exceptional and cohesive as the top tier. Weird is a B but it's a solid B, and there's no shame in that.

Slayer- Reign In Blood

Maybe it's the fact that I'm trying to give up smoking and drinking, or that I've been stressed out and pissed off a lot lately...but hot damn does metal sound great to me all of a sudde. 

I confess: I used to always be that hipster music nerd type who claimed to have an eclectic taste but didn't really truck with a few genres. In my case it was hip hop and metal. I've long since come around to the former, but for some reason I always (incorrectly) perceived metal as the genre, and host of sub-genres, which all pretty much sounded alike and only varied in how fast the songs were and how screamy the singer was.

Perhaps it's the surprising variety coupled with the short run time, but Reign In Blood officially converted me to a metal fan a few nights ago. It's just such an extreme album that has lost none of its power and visceral force since its 1986 release; whenever I listen to it at work, I can't help but rock the fuck out even though I'm usually too self conscious to enjoy grooving to music if I'm not alone.

But I digress.

Just go listen to the damn thing via the YouTube thingie above. It's got a lot more dynamics and interesting song structures than you'd expect if you aren't familiar with this kind of music. So go, listen. Perhaps it's your turn to be baptized under a lacerated sky.