(Note: this band changes their name a lot. Currently, their name is Osees, at the time of publishing this record, their name was Oh Sees, and the name they held the longest, and my personal favorite, is Thee Oh Sees.)

Osees is a prolific rock band from San Francisco lead by John Dwyer. Their music often blends psychedelic, progressive, punk and garage genres, capable of face-melting bangers and more relaxed and emotional songs. They actually started out as more of a folk band before slowly morphing into what they are today. Their evolution throughout their discography is interesting to follow, but it's not what I want to focus on in this post.

I want to talk about the album they released on August 17, 2018, Smote Reverser.

Before I start: crazy art, right? This is probably in my top 10 covers of all time, I love the design of the monster and the crazy amount of detail, and it fits the sound and themes of the album really well.

Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough, but I feel like in the years since this released, I don't see people bring it up much. They still play some of the songs live occasionally, but this album doesn't seem to get the same amount of buzz from fans that some of their others do, like Orc or Face Stabber. Personally, I think it is one of their most unique albums. They have some stuff that is similar to this album, but nothing replicates it exactly.

I think one of the most obvious differences are the fantasy/D&D influences. Their music has always referenced these things, like in certain song names, like "Gelatinous Cube" or "Carrion Crawler",  and at one point Dwyer even used a guitar that had dice for knobs (he might still have these IDK). Smote Reverser feels enveloped in a fantasy setting, however, like it was soaked in these influences until it got soggy like an oreo in milk.

This is evident in both sound and lyrics. The third track, C, describes a murderous creature:

"Slide down deep, baby, in its lair
Laying among the bones and hair
This evening begins anew
Creature, come on, slay a few"

Overthrown is the loudest, hardest and most frenzied song on the record, and it seems to describe a village being destroyed:

"Please, please, down on your knees
What is the point of it all?
Barren, burned, vacant of trees
This is the end of it all!"

This is followed up by Last Peace, which describes the people trying to recover from the damage:

"The human hand will till the land
And part debris of old city, yeah
We're planting seed of long gone breed
On battered shore, on forest floor, yeah"

This is definitely one of their more cinematic albums. It feels like you could make a movie in your head that connects through all of the tracks, and even though some of their other albums can inspire interesting visuals, it feels more focused and connected here.

There are more notable prog rock elements too. Again, this isn't new, but here it feels more pronounced, and especially inspired by older prog rock. Many times keyboards and organs are used in a way that kinda reminds me of stuff like Pink Floyd, like on Enrique El Cobrador. This is the second album where they worked with keyboardist Tomas Dolas, and you can hear his parts all over this record.

This isn't my favorite Osees record (I think that would be Mutilator Defeated at Last), I'm not a big fan of Anthemic Aggressor, a 12 minute instrumental jam, so that's like, 1/6th of the album I don't really care for, but I still appreciate it and its place in the discography and I wanted to show it some recognition.

(Note 2: if you haven't listened to this band and this blog interested you, but you want a better idea of their general sound, you could try checking out Mutilator Defeated at Last, or either of their Levitation Sessions live albums. I'm biased because I really like all of those albums lol, but I believe they should give you a good idea of their sound and range.)