Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler / The Dream EP

Thee Oh Sees made a great many records in a short span, and this is the one where they stopped being a band and became an engine. John Dwyer brought in Lars Finberg of The Intelligence as a second drummer, put the five-piece into Chris Woodhouse's Sacramento studio, and cut the whole thing live to tape across five days. Bassist Petey Dammit's account is hard to improve on: completely recorded live, one two three, press record, go.

"Carrion Crawler" opens on a krautrock chug that runs nearly six minutes without blinking. "Contraption / Soul Desert" welds an Oh Sees original onto a cover of Can's "Soul Desert." "Chem-Farmer" is an interstellar instrumental that demonstrates precisely what two locked drum kits do to a groove, and "Crack in Your Eye" brings sunburnt organ and dovetailing guitars. "The Dream" spends almost seven minutes building and never once releases the pressure. Ten tracks, forty minutes, no fat anywhere. Dwyer put it plainly at the time: Castlemania was a vocal tirade, and this one was meant to pummel and throb.

It landed in November 2011 as their twelfth album, named for a centipede-like Dungeons and Dragons monster and, separately, for a song that has nothing to do with it. The vinyl labels it an EP, which is funny at forty minutes. The band dedicated it to the memory of Jerry Fuchs, Jay Reatard and Gerard Smith. It was received as the record that finally got the band's live ferocity onto tape, and it remains where you point anyone trying to understand this period.

Back in stock on clear purple vinyl. Recorded and mixed by Chris Woodhouse at The Hangar, mastered by Tardon Feathered, cover art by Elzo Durt. In The Red Recordings, ITR 222.