Over the past nine years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Bay Area-based JOVM mainstays Oh Sees. And as you may recall, the act, which is led by its ridiculously prolific founder and creative mastermind John Dwyer has a cultivated a long-held reputation for wide-ranging and restless experimentation that has seen the band dabble between a variety of genres and styles including lysergic-tinged folk, furious and sweaty garage punk rippers, sci-fi driven krautrock and more — with each successive album being wildly different from its predecessor.
Face Stabber, a 2LP album is slated for an August 16, 2019 release through their longtime label home Castle Face Records, and the album’s first single “Henchrock” was a free-flowing, skronky The Yes Album-era Yes meets Return to Forever-like expansive bit of prog rock. The album’s latest single “Poisoned Stones” continues on a similar vein — skronky prog rock but this time delivered with a muscular and forceful insistence, as the track is centered around enormous power chords and thunderous drumming.
The recently released video for “Poisoned Stones” features 8 bit video game graphic animation by Eaten Alive Illustrations that’s a surrealistic nightmare as it follows our motorcycle riding protagonist being chased through the desert — until the bat-like creature chasing him captures him and drops him off into the lair of a cloaked magician. After killing the magician, the protagonist escapes, feeds something to a wolf, who has a mind-bending trip and allows our protagonist to ride him until they arrive at a castle that will be destroyed by an even weirder, alien-like dragon.
The members of Oh Sees will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout the summer and fall months that includes a three night, October run at Warsaw — October 18, 2019 – October 20, 2019. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
11-13 Carnation WA Timber! Festival
August
9 Pioneertown, CA Pappy and Harriet’s
23 Charleville Cabaret Vert festival
24 Guéret Check-in Festival
27 Ravenna Hana-Bi (Free)
29 Vienna Arena
30 Munich Strom
31 Berlin Kreuzberg Festsaal
September
1 Brussels Les Botaniquesen
3 Bordeaux BT 59
4 Toulouse Le Bikini
5 Paris Le Bataclan
6 London Troxy
7 Amsterdam Paradiso
30 San Francisco, CA The Chapel
October
1 San Francisco, CA The Chapel
2 San Francisco, CA The Chapel
4 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
7 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre
10 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue Ballroom
11 Chicago, IL Thalia Hall
12 Chicago, IL Thalia Hall
14 Toronto, ON Danforth Music Hall
15 Montreal, QC Le National
16 Cambridge, MA The Sinclair
18 Brooklyn, NY Warsaw
19 Brooklyn, NY Warsaw
20 Brooklyn, NY Warsaw
22 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
23 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
24 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge
25 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jacks
26 Austin TX Hotel Vegas
27 Austin, TX Hotel Vegas
29 Albuquerque, NM Sister Bar
31 Los Angeles, CA Teragram Ballroom