Do you remember the awful 1990s CBBC programme, The Queen’s Nose? There would always be that scene where the juveniles in charge of the precious coin would place their hands upon it and spin off into some parallel universe where everything would be a touch disorientating. Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer seems to have taken a glimmer of inspiration, using his fuzz pedal as the method to transcend us into cosmic galaxies – everything becomes far-fetched and shrouded in lunacy. Dwyer knows how to have fun in this galaxy, though, and he drags you through his mind’s eye into the mayhem too.

A Weird Exits acts as the umpteenth album by Thee Oh Sees. You’d be massively forgiven for forgetting exactly what number we are up to but, I can guarantee, you’ll need more than two hands to count where we are. Where Thee Oh Sees have occasionally faltered in the past is when they cling dearly to the garage-rock tree without really finding much movement from it. This is not to say A Weird Exits is a tame beast by any nature, it just affirms that the band have found a way to nudge their sound into slightly unconventional territories.

Opener, ‘Dead Man’s Gun’ has the rattle of a rollercoaster. It’s as if Dwyer counts you into the chaos that rumbles and it shows promise from the start. His half-sing, half-chant bounces along with the nonchalance of a prance to work. It’s as he yells the first “woooo” of the album that you begin to grasp what is in store. The constant cosmic spring-boarding always lingers and intimidates you, threatening to be unleashed at any given moment. Miraculously Dwyer manages to turn the song inside out, making the verse appear as the chorus, the only tangible part of the song.

‘Ticklish Warrior’ does just the same. Any chance that Dwyer would let you off the ride that easily it dispelled as he once again shows nothing but complete brutality with the way he treats you. With the fuzz pedal wrapped tightly under his arm, it continues to assure that constant agitation that plagues Dwyer and co. ‘Ticklish Warrior’, if nothing else, acts as a perfect musical incarnation of their philosophy as a band in 2016 – it is unshackling to listen to and similarly, emphasises the message that this album is a new void for Thee Oh Sees to enter. It moves with focus, as do the band.

When the album loses this focus, it falls into the slippy kaleidoscopic jams such as the aptly titled, ‘Jam Entrance’. It is an outlining of where much of A Weird Exits travels nowadays, the muddy guitar parts and sonic textures overlap one another causing for a slowing in tempo. Tiresome to some, Dwyer manages to keep you hooked enough to send you spinning out the back of the five and a half minute track into ‘Plastic Plant’. By far and large, ‘Plastic Plant’ picks up where ‘Jam Entrance’ departed. Where the track prior opened the collar of the shirt, ‘Plastic Pant’ undoes the rest. It finds the group returning to the safe zone of their garage-rock but, rather than using it as a crutch, they use it as a point of reference. It has the signature motorik that cuts under off-beat guitar strikes but Dwyer continues to soar you into the unknown with his stratospheric fuzz.

Some say if you shut your eyes, you can hear the soaring guitar of ‘Gelatinous Cube’ distracting air-control at Heathrow. It is a certain to propel crowd-surfers at live shows, destined to piss off security time and time again, you can’t imagine Dwyer will complain at how the energy of the song transposes in the crowd. A lot of the energy generated here is via the option to utilise two sticksmen as opposed to one – Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon can largely be held responsible for any trouble that may come undone live. ’Unwrap The Fiend Pt.2’ does the polar opposite, instead falling close to the potheads outside. It has the contemplative head nod of 60s West-Coast psych. It saunters rather than charges and in doing so, it expresses another avenue of musicianship for Thee Oh Sees.

‘Crawl Out From The Fall Out’ sees the band hit the tail end of their album. As a song, it tries to expand on the free jams of ‘Jam Entrance’ falling into the murky waters of Spiritualized, Spacemen 3 and early Verve. What it struggles to do is ignite any purpose in the song; it is swampy and feels as if Thee Oh Sees lose that boldness and agility that they asserted earlier in the record. ‘The Axis’ is the star-spangled synthesised shimmer to the album though. It glows with 60s pop-hooks, sounding as if Dwyer has finally calmed down from his angst and agility. It closes the album by kicking-off its shoes, collapsing into the lazy-boy chair and wiping itself of the day’s hardships. It’s blissful guitar stabs and crushing organ sections personifies the exhaustion that A Weird Exits has propelled you into.
Tom Churchill

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