Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees: “It Killed Mom”

from The Oh Sees Sucks Blood (Castle Face)

attic antics // Out Now                                   7.0

There are no typos overhead. The group’s name is now Thee Oh Sees,

but it was The Oh Sees, but you might also see it signed as The OhSees, or

The Ohsees, which is fitting, because: (1) it’s an artist’s right to change her mind; and (2) you see bands’ names spelled all kinds of ways in this world

of advertising, and head Oh John Dwyer’s been careering through I

ndieland a long, long time. He’s also been in: Coachwhips,

Pink & Brown, Yikes, Zeigenbock Kopf, Dig The Body Up Its Alive,

Swords & Sandals, Oronaco Crash Suite, and OCS. He’s gradually

mashed the flash and trash and crash of most of these with the

avantiness of others, most compactly in the lo-fi, mellow-to-morbid,

fishhook valentines of Oh Sees, especially on Sucks Blood.  

Here, Brigid Dawson sweetly matches and tops Dwyer’s higher notes,

brushing coy murk toward sexy in-jokes, between smug and intriguing, tres fetching (you might find yourself fetching her a tray, unbidden).

But where’s she really going, with those guys with the guitars (Dwyer,

Petey Dammit), as their little licks keep easing ‘round corners, what

kind of set-up is this? Is the ritual going to end up too too-too, as Tom

Verlaine might put it? Never mind, you can test all Blood for free, here and there, online, and “Iceberg” is probably Dwyer’s warmest song evah!

“Ice-berg, fill in the path. A killer’s cake (cape?). Long and flat. As, of, lately.

A co-old hand. You are my path (blue in my path?). It’s sum-mer, time.

Don’t let it pass. As of lately, I been dreaming, “ and guitars lift

post-frigid Brigid up tender trees, so she tries it again, and the rest

is silence. But she had her season in the sun, and  “Ship” sways and

bumps sidewise through reminiscence, re a party that may not be

quite over yet (so let’s go check), on those “decks run red with blood.”

So, ar-r-r-gh, matey baby! Cap’n Hook, Dwyer, that is, squawks at her
approach, “If you want, to see, me wealth, my God! My Mom, is not,

the only one to see, me wealth, “ so welcome aboard, if you get his drift,

but (‘member what was said re “turning corners”) this is not the party

or the blood you may have thought you were returning to: the song is

now “It Killed Mom,” which title may not give the plot away entirely,

or at all--who knows, what with the words caught around the guitar

bursts, which merely shiver Thee timbres, like handsaws in pine pulp,

under the bark, forever closing around due and undue diligence.

Like children in armor, like hipsters in amber. But sometimes,

it’s also like summertime, you know. Don’t let it pass.

(It won’t take that long.)