Listening to… The Oh Sees

The Oh Sees, Carrion Crawlers. Neo-psychedlia that’s not spacy, and seems to be forming and swirling cosmos-like before your very years. The songs are above-average underground garage, but when given such exquisite studio attention, are simply mesmerizing. “Robber Barons” gives new meaning to “chiming,” and “Opposition (with maracas)” is as outraged and prissy as you need a song called that to be. “Crack in Your Eye” is the slow-grind set-piece in the currently trendy Brian Jones Massacre mode. The longest cut on the album, with the title that appears to promise the most stultification—“The Dream”—is in fact one of the fastest and friskiest. The whole ten-song set seems genuine and spontaneous, not so much a tribute to classic garage psychedelia but magically borne from the exact same spiritual place, half a century later.