Here’s an album guaranteed to get vinyl enthusiasts into a state of ecstasy: ‘warm slime’ by Thee oh sees comprises seven tracks, thirty minutes of music and the first track takes up the whole first side! A demented, swirling, garage-rock infused ode to the psychedelic music of the Doors, The Rolling Stones and early Pink Floyd, you don’t honestly need the other six tracks to convince you of the talent or sincerity of this crazed band of acid-worshipping noise addicts.
Kicking off with the aforementioned title track is a moment of pure genius. A beautifully eclectic mess of fractured guitar, shifting rhythms and hazy vocals of the like employed by the Doors on prime moment ‘the end’, it is fifteen minutes of pure rock joy – a celebration of music past and music still to come and if you haven’t fallen in love with Thee Oh Sees by the end then you clearly don’t like music! However, despite the temptation to sit with the first side of the platter on repeat over and over again, there are other tracks to admire. ‘I was denied’ is pure pop music, albeit distorted, dirty, slightly punk pop music. Hints of The White Stripes primitive garage clatter are apparent here, tucked neatly in with elements of Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3.
‘Everything went black’ is drenched in reverb and attitude – played as if the whole thing is going to fall apart at any second and with the spirit of the most elemental of rock ‘n’ roll bands. ‘Castiatic tackle’ is the long-lost b-side to an Iggy Pop single – needles lost in the red zone, energy levels set to kill. ‘Flash bats’ on the other hand is the experimental noise that Sonic Youth loved to make when they were still, well, youths – a chaotic mangling of noise and feedback and all the better for it. The final two tracks, ‘Mega-feast’ and ‘MT work’ nicely round out this short trip into outer space with echoey bursts of enthusiastic noise-pop that are as essential as they are elemental.
Thee Oh Sees are an amazing band – an unashamedly retro-styled band with more ideas floating about their spinning heads than they can possibly handle. This short disc fizzes with ambition, unbridled passion for their art and a sense of fun that keeps the listener hooked form the off. Bringing to mind bands such as Seattle mentalists The Catheters and The Supersuckers, this is an album for anyone who loves their rock music to carry an element of danger with it. Frequently tunes sound like they’re going to head off the rails completely, drums are loose and the guitars have quite possibly never been near anything like a tuner – but hell that’s all part of the gloriously rebellious spirit that pours out of the speakers. An added bonus is that the art-work is spectacular – up there with Baroness in the amazing cover stakes. Thee Oh Sees rock, it’s official. Three last words: Buy. This. Record.
