Thee Oh Sees – Putrifiers II
Heard one John Dwyer album heard ‘em all, right? Well, yes and no. Certainly if you’ve heard one and you didn’t like it you don’t have to wait around long for the next one. Churning out at least one studio album a year for most of the millennium, Dwyer is, along with kindred spirit Ty Segall , the current king of San Francisco’s scuzzy and plentiful psyche-garage scene.
How then does his Putrifiers II fit into this prolific landscape? Rather well it turns out. Things start brightly with the demented psyche, killer garage riffs and redlining fuzz of “Wax Face” and momentum is maintained via the bouncy bass buzz and generally fine stoner-garage of “Hang A Picture” in which Dwyer coos out “ sweet melody ” for very good reason.
The title track takes isolated electric strumming and smears it into some sci-fi indulgence – an idea taken to full fruition later on the splendidly marauding kraut and brass rocker “Lupine Dominus”. Clearly having a whale of time, Dwyer twins his kinda falsetto with more urgent passages on the strutting “Flood’s New Light”, hitting like fellow period fetishists Woods tackling the more bloodshot grooves of the Nuggets compilations in the process.
A change of pace, the tantalisingly twee closer “Wicked Park” is pure Leonard Cohen with its strings and woodwind set against Dwyer and ever-present keyboardist Brigid Dawson ‘s dark harmonies. And just one pleasingly melodious track earlier Dwyer was aping Lou Reed and his deliciously doomed disinterest – a natural conclusion perhaps to the earlier meditative and spooky Velvet Underground jam “So Nice” in which protesting viola gives off a spiritual vibe, eventually bleeding itself towards a conclusion with syrupy pulses and drone.
Music is lifeblood for people like Dwyer and Putrifiers II is as effortless, creative and genuine as it should be for someone seemingly born to do nothing but rock. Pity anyone who ever tries to take that away from him. Long live the king(s).
Advised downloads: “Wax Face” and “Lupine Dominus”.
~Putrifiers II is released September 17th 2012 on In The Red .~