Osees Metamorphosed
9.3 / 10 Spectacular Psych Punk Garage Rock
Osees Metamorphosed was released on in October of 2020 a very limited edition release from Austrian label Rock Is Hell.
Osees Metamorphosed is a wild ride with psychrock, garage rock and heavy metal music blasting through the speakers. This is the second album from Osees in 2020 along with Protean Threat and both were released around the same time and sold out very fast.
Osees has built a reputation as one of the most interesting psychedelic garage rock bands on Earth with consistent high quality releases. Osees is never happy to rest in a specific sound each album has them exploring new avenues and trying new things.
Osees Metamorphosed
The music on Metamorphosed is intense, complex, experimental psych punk with several other genres in the blend. John Dwyer is on vocals and guitar and drives the songs with textured fuzz tones and treble forward tonality. The guitars are always a highlight with Osees and on Metamorphosed they get fast, heavy, weird and pulse with non-stop creative energy.
The dual drummers are locked-in with complex rhythms being passed between the two drummers. The double drummers makes a big drum sound that stays very tight and precise. In the early recording from Oh Sees with dual drummers it felt like the two were playing the same drum parts for most of the album but now they have grown into their role and function as a 4 armed super drummer.
The bass of Tim Hellman has been a defining feature of the Oh Sees and Osees sound. The bass is ever present juggling rhythmic punch and melodic expression. The bass never rests and keeps the low end thumping throughout the album.
Thomas Dolan is on the synth and keyboards, he is the main player in the band Mr. Elevator and is a talented creative player. On Metamorphosed his synth integrates perfectly into the raw rock sound and takes the music into free jam territory. John Dwyer also enjoys laying down some synth lines and the two combine their efforts on the long tracks ‘The Virologist’ clocking in at 15 minutes and ‘I Got A Lot’ which runs 22 minutes.
Osees released an album called the 12″ Synth that become a coveted collectors item as it was secretly released and sold out quickly. On that album the entire sound was space age drone with Thomas Dolan and John Dwyer on synth and effects no drums, bass or guitar, just synth. Metamorphosed integrates some of this approach in the longer tracks but also leaves room for the rest of the band to join in. In these drawn out tracks the drummers get complicated adding mind-bending subtleties to the rhythm. The bass feels at home bumping along holding down the melodic drive while expertly keeping a punchy bass to add to the drums.
The vocals sound great with John Dwyer’s weirdo vocal style. They come through cleanly with less reverb and echo then in the past and focuses on doubling many of the vocal lines. For example on ‘Got A lot’ he repeats “You got a lot on your mind” at the start of the long track and the vocal is doubled by a whispering over dub. The reliance on vocal backing taking president over the wild reverb and echo of the past fits the new approach they are taking on this album and in Protean Threat as well. It makes the vocals more percussive and more forward in the mix as compared to the distance that is created with reverb.
The band gels beautifully on this album and it truly feels like they have gotten comfortable with the expanded line-up and are now able to loosely and freely create in the moment. Osees has the band exploring improvisational jams and bringing the music to more intense hard heavy fast rock and slowing it down to jammy drones and extended forages.
Osees Metamorphosed
Osees was founded in 1997 with John Dwyer as band leader and creative director, known then as Thee Oh Sees. After the departure of long time bassist the band reassembled in Los Angeles moving away from their long time residence in San Francisco. They added Tim Hellmen on bass and added a second drummer shortly thereafter. They changed their name to Oh Sees and released several great albums. 2019 saw the addition of Thomas Dolan on organ and synthesizer and another name change to Osees.
Each manifestation of the band has had its own sound. The most recent Osees moves the band into new musical directions keeping the heavy hitting high tempo guitar rock of old and mixing in jam sections, experimental drone and subtle shades of jazz keys.
All together Osees has released over 20 albums since 1997. The band has become an inspiration to many new bands emerging from all around the world. John Dwyer’s distinctive guitar style and sound has slithered its way into the primordial soup of bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, SLIFT, The WRS, The Heaters, Frankie and The Witch Fingers, and too may more to name.
Metamorphosed was released at almost the same time as Protean Threat and the two albums seem like they were created as one long album split in two. Their loyal fan base has allowed the band to do looser recordings and to release their jam sessions as albums which has helped to increase their output while keeping high quality standards. John Dwyer founded Castle Face Records which allows him to release what ever the hell he wants and in interviews has said starting his own label early on was one of the best choices he has made in music business.
Osees Metamorphosed
This is a great album and I am so happy it was made available on streaming because the vinyl was only released in Europe in extremely limited quantity. The band makes weird ass music that gets way farout and also can rip with psych-punk-metal fury. This is a great album for fans and for people who are just being introduced to this band who has conquered the underground psychrock scene.
Osees Metamorphosed
https://ohsees.bandcamp.com/album/metamorphosed
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Very informative!!! Thanks my friend, can’t wait wait until the next one!!! Much love from dmtworld.net!!!