Underneath Your Human Skin

Thee Oh Sees “Web”

If you listen through John Dwyer’s catalog, there’s a clear arc in which he’s writing and writing and playing and playing and recording and recording, and there’s a point somewhere around Thee Oh Sees’ Putrifiers II came out in 2012 where it sounds like it got easy for him. Not easy in the sense that it became boring or rote, but easy in that his music seems like the result of pure instinct for rhythm and melody. The best Dwyer songs sound like he’s surrendering to a groove and trusting himself to respond fully in the moment. A lot of Thee Oh Sees songs sound as though they could’ve been fully improvised even when that’s not the case, and that’s part of Dwyer just being so present in the performances, and seeming totally thrilled by dynamic shifts. His frequent “whooooo!” exclamations seem like a vocal tic at first, but it’s clear over time that it’s the most honest expression in his music. A song like “Web” is just this cool roller coaster he built for himself to ride.

Buy it from Amazon.