Thee Oh Sees
An Odd Entrances
Castle Face Records
Excuse me if it’s taken a few months to swim out of Thee Oh Sees’ latest auditory acid test long enough to say a few words about it, but I’ve been submerged and swept away.
Serving as a companion to A Weird Exits (released in August 2016), An Odd Entrances (released just 3 months later) takes that previous dream and plunges it further into oblivion. If the previous sonic venture was an exploratory journey of the celestial variety – replete with electronic waves on digital seas – than this latest offering is an underwater dalliance with light and sound. Take “Jammed Exit” – the sequel to “Jammed Entrance” quietly turns that original high octane instrumental mind meld inside out by stripping off the galactic trippiness, adding some flutes, and dancing slowly in a thunderstorm at sunrise.
Similarly, “Unwrap the Fiend Pt. 1” prequels A Weird Exits’ “Unwrap the Fiend Pt. 2” with a solid 3 minutes of guitar groove that serve as an intro to the strangely whimsical metallic continuation of “…Pt. 2.” Like most prequels, this one isn’t as powerful as the original, but it fills in some gaps that further complete the favored first offering.
In between these languid instrumentals, “The Poem” taps a 60’s vein that’s dripping with quiet psychedelia – like falling asleep on a forest bed of mushrooms and flowers. “At the End, On the Stairs” is the lucid dream that follows – with John Dwyer whispering his vocals in your ear in between bursts of higher volume grooves and beats. At the end of this journey, “Nervous Tech (Nah John)” is a noisy, momentary jam that does what Thee Oh Sees does best: opens the book, but allows the listener to write the story.
Thee Oh Sees don’t make rock records, they make experiences and this one flirts with the Timothy Leary variety.
