For John Dwyer’s “5-10-15-20” interview, the Oh Sees frontman talked about discovering the work of the Mexican psych prog band Los Dug Dug’s. The legend behind their 1972 album Smog, as Dwyer heard it, goes like this: Armando Nava went up to the mountains, took acid, and conceptualized that LP. “He came back and taught it to the band, and it is by far their biggest triumph,” Dwyer said. Although Thee Oh Sees sound almost nothing like Los Dug Dug’s-- the latter laying on the flute solos a bit too thick-- the opening track on Floating Coffin is called “I Come From the Mountain”. Like most of Dwyer's best songs, it's got muscle and drive. As usual, the story is fractured, abstracted, and therein, too nonspecific to be exclusively about Nava. But the spirit of the myth is there: “I come from the mountain, I return again,” Dwyer sings. Yes, but is he emerging from the mountain with his masterwork?
Based on their output from the past two years alone, it's hard to fathom what “biggest triumph” would even look like for Thee Oh Sees at this point. Castlemania had Dwyer bleating “I Need Seed” in a strained toad voice; the centerpiece of Carrion Crawler/The Dream was a blistering Krautrock masterwork; “Goodnight Baby” from Putrifiers II was a Nuggets lullaby capped by field recordings of chirping birds. Each of those albums are triumphs, and picking the "best" one feels like an arbitrary decision-- they suit different moods, different purposes. In that tradition, Floating Coffin is another resounding success.
And it's sort of a sadistic success. In the tradition of tracks like “The Dream”, “Tunnel Time” is carried by an adrenaline-fueled drive. But this time, the lyrics are about murdering a whole bunch of people, and the central hook is the band singing an evil laugh: “HA HA HA HA HA, HA HA HA HA HAAAA HA!.” Behind every infectious riff, there's a dark undertone. What's behind the strawberries on the album's cover? A murderous gaze. What's behind the earworm hooks and vamp-filled rock'n'roll? Lyrics about splattered blood and dead children. There are a few references to “the maze” as it relates to the narrator's descent into madness. In “Maze Fancier”, he's trapped and sings that there's “nothing inside of me.” Perhaps that dispassionate void manifests later on “Sweet Helicopter” when he takes a dementedly detached view of murder: “I look down and see them looking up.” With his unsettling disconnect between sweet falsetto and portrayal of a glazed-eyed killer, Dwyer definitely earns his spot in the prestigious club of murder balladeers.
Of course, you have to listen pretty carefully to hear Dwyer as demon or serial killer. The lyrics are run through the band's go-to filter of falsetto, voice effects, and extremely loud guitars. The title track is a chaotic burner that sounds like it could fall apart at any moment-- each element is barely held together by the bassline-- so any vocals are pretty well obliterated by volume. But for an album stuffed with great melodies, smooth transitions, shredding guitar solos, and stellar percussion work (the spastic percussion simmering in the background of “Sweet Helicopter” is a particular highlight), it's hard to mind when the lyrics take a backseat. That said, although Floating Coffin does quite well with its searing powerhouses, the quieter moments add a much-needed sonic diversity. The viola melody that introduces “Minotaur” is gorgeous, and once again, that's for a song that tells a fairly miserable story.
Arguably, the most powerful song on Floating Coffin is “No Spell”. The majority of the track features a gentle melody, buoyed by a soft rhythm section, and some ethereal vocals. There are words on the lyrics sheet for the song, but they appear more as a series of evaporating vowel sounds. And naturally, the quiet is broken by a WOO, a series of hefty power chords, and a guitar solo-- a thrilling stab of power amid the quiet warmth. It's a sweet melody that offers a brief respite from the bloodshed. It also illustrates that there's no pre-established blueprint for an Oh Sees album, which means there's no telling what's next. As usual, that's an exciting prospect.
