John Dwyer’s guitar strings punctuate the air with their horrific riffs, draining the residual sins from a dormant desert. Each note settling upon the armored faces that look on in the hopes that with each song, their hearts will dance aimlessly, with no points to ponder.Thee Oh Sees. Launchpad. Four 7&7s. Hipster androids and old souls—each dancing to the rhythm of another backbeat gone awry amidst treacherous winds. They start with “I Come From the Mountain.” And immediately a sense of chaotic emergence becomes desperately relevant. Their harmonies echo throughout the space. People dance wildly, contemplating nothing because all thoughts have been thought before they even had a chance to question anything. By the third song (“Block of Ice”), the senselessness lies heavy. There’s blood. There’s acid. There’s trickery amongst the bass lines.Couples argue while the music accentuates a recklessness not seen in many bands nowadays. Thee Oh Sees exhibits the loss of drug-addled discord, but their energy inhabits a place that dares to call itself rebellion. Their harmonious chaos is relevant. It seeps into the fog of relentless normality. It speaks of experience. It speaks of wild infatuation. And the Launchpad was the perfect—if not only—venue to house such indecent rallying. A call to the indigenous to come forward and surrender to explosive vibration.There was The Master’s Bedroom (is Worth Spending The Night in), there were Floating Coffins, there was “Lupine Dominus” merging with the boneless bodies swaying to those sinister sounds. And yet, there was magic manifesting itself in these moments. No one cared. Nothing mattered. Jobs, children, the drudgery of the day-to-day. Each melted. Each murdered within that magnificent moment. This is what matters. Music. It’s one hell of a freak show.
Thee Oh Sees...
...Are Anything But Dead.
2 min read
