Face Stabber - Thee Oh Sees: Review
are a California rock band who have been releasing a constant stream of music under a number of different names for nearly 15 years now. The only steady member of the group is frontman John Dwyer and since changing their name to just "Oh Sees" in 2017 they have dropped three records that have all dabbled in experimental and unconventional rock sounds, a sonic element that began for the band with their two records in 2016. This act of the groups career have brought them into a new light within the world of indie music that has come paired with consistent critical acclaim leading up to Face Stabber.
Review By Lavender:
I would never really have considered myself a fan of Thee Oh Sees despite enjoying some of their recent music. Albums like A Weird Exits and Smote Reverser may not have been perfect but they pushed the envelope enough to stay interesting and create a few tracks that jammed. But more than ever before on Face Stabber a lot of the time is being wasted with wandering songwriting and instrumental passages stretched to their absolute limit, while the shorter songs are clearly so much more fun.
At over 80 minutes long Face Stabber contains three big tracks in its beginning middle and end that make up half the record all on their own, and they are not very rewarding listens. The opening song The Daily Heavy has a strange and frankly annoying sample of a squeaky toy that eventually gains some lowkey percussion and an understated vocal performance that works alongside some strange chanting. I really have no idea what the point of the track is as it spends most of its time instrumentally wandering in a incredibly boring fashion that proves nothing other than the bands ability to literally play in time together. The second of these very long tracks is by far the most tolerable, Scutum & Scorpius. At nearly 15 minutes long the jazzy rock track is definitely the best use of the long form compositional time and the bounciness of the instrumental makes the very long vocal-less passages so worth it. The final of these moments is the closing track Hencklock which is nearly the combined time of both the prior tracks at 21+ minutes. The first half of the song is a long and arduous slog full of random progressions that lead to nowhere and make the tail end of the record a total mess. Thankfully the second half of the song gets much more interesting in its improvising and the sounds are so much cooler and more interesting than the first half.
One of the cooler elements of the record is how many of the short songs here are wild and interesting experiments. Face Stabber and Snickersnee are the great first two examples of these both of which feature some fiery and fast paced guitar work and the latter of which implements an ethereal vocal performance that I totally love. Gholu is the hardest and fastest moment on the entire album and its unfortunate that the song is so short because I really enjoy the track and the ideas it brings to the album. Psy-Ops Dispatch is an excellent tune with punchy percussion that is softer but incredibly catchy with its vocals and an awesome song with wonderful technical guitar work. S.S. Luker's Mom isn't my favorite of the shorter songs as its stop and start nature gets old pretty quickly despite its length. But the short tracks make a quick turnaround after this with Heartworm another great song with blistering guitars and distant shouted vocals that make for a heavier punked out track that I once again wish was longer.
Poisoned Stones is the only other song I really like herewith some catchy guitar work but it does have some really strange structuring that drags the track down. There are some other songs here that are either uninspired or have some strange passages that don't really align for a compelling song like The Experimenter or Fu Xi. Or the strange ambient experiment Captain Loosley that doesn't really add anything to the record and serves as a really strange moment that throws off the flow.
On Face Stabber Thee Oh Sees flirt with some really cool ideas but get totally drowned out in strange arrangements, weird song structures and tracks that last way too long for their own good. While I am optimistic that the band may execute an experiment in the future that works well as they release albums so frequently but this one won't be an album I remember or frequently return to. 5/10
