Osees 'Protean Threat' (ALBUM REVIEW)
At this point it's almost too easy for John Dwyer. The man responsible for a garage-rock outfit so psychedelic it is now on its eighth near-identical name (currently Osees, previously The Ohsees, The Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, and Oh Sees and before that Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound) seems to have broken free of anything vaguely normal and entered the state… beyond.
Hell, just take a look at the block-capital statement heralding new album Protean Threat – one phrase plucked at random reads: "LOOK INTO THE MIRROR OF THE PLANET-KILLERS PSYCHIC CANNIBALS INFILTRATE AND CONTAMINATE ONCE FAMILIAR AND SEEMINGLY SECURE TERRITORIES". Okay John, whatever you say!
The transformation into Osees may initially have seemed like a sharp right turn into boundaryless psychadelia with The 12" Synth, a sprawling acid-fuelled 40-minute synth jam separated loosely into just two tracks. But use that as a gateway into Dwyer's latest world at your peril, for this is a man who has the gall – the barefaced cheek – to call the first single off this latest record 'Dreary Nonsense'. Loveable nonsense it may very well be, but dreary is the complete opposite of the track's hyperactive wasp-in-a-jar fuzz, which is a firm return to last year's (much more appropriately named) Thee Oh Sees record Face Stabber.
That crackling fizz persists with varying degrees of freeform experimentation – opener 'Scramble Suit II' throws in what seem suspiciously like brass stabs while 'Terminal Jape' is a muscular thrash straight out of the garage – but is alternated almost like clockwork with cleaner, more accessible jams. 'Said the Shovel' straddles two minimal grooves with a blissed-out bassline and 'Gong of Catastrophe' is an acid-flecked gem which is exactly as fun as it sounds. The circle is completed with recent single 'If I Had My Way', a dusty, good-time garage-rock joint which bustles along as Dwyer sings "I'm a little bit dry, I'm a little bit wet". And that's a good summary of Protean Threat – a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but a physical impossibility.
