Osees – Intercepted Message (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

“A pop record for tired times. Sugared with bits of shatterproof glass to put more crack in your strap. At long last, verse / chorus. A weathered thesaurus. This is OSEES bookend sound. Early grade garage pop meets proto-synth punk suicide-repellant. Have a whack at the grass or listen while flat on your ass. Heaps of electronic whirling accelerants to gum up your cheapskate broadband. Social media toilet scrapers unite! Allow your 24-hour news cycle eyes to squint at this smiling abattoir doorman. You can find your place here at long last. All are welcome from the get go to the finale…a distant crackling transmission of 80s synth last-dance-of-the-night tune for your lost loves. Suffering from Politic amnesia? Bored of AI-generated pop slop? Then this one is for you, our friends. Wasteland wanderer, stick around. Love y’all. For fans of Teutonic synth punk and Thee Oh Sees (who the fuck are they?)” —John Dwyer

In December 2022, John Dwyer, the founder and leader of Osees (dating back to those carefree days when they were still called Thee Oh Sees), opened a recording studio in Los Angeles, Discount Mirrors. A look at their website shows the place has a nice collection of keyboards, both old and new. Perhaps spending some time with that bank of synthesizers inspired Dwyer, because the hard-edged punk-infomed sound of Osees’ 2022 release A Foul Form has given way to an edgy homage to synth-pop on 2023’s Intercepted Message. The cries, squeals, and bleeps of aging electronic keyboards dominate most of these songs, along with the angular melodies and lockstep rhythms that were common in early electronic pop of the late 1970s and early ’80s. Q: Are We Not Men?-era Devo is clearly a touchstone here, both in terms of its embrace of cheap keyboards and its ranting about the unfortunate direction of the American mindset, as the abuses of social media, media overdrive, economic inequality, and global groupthink are raked over the coals in Dwyer’s lyrics. Also like Devo’s salad days, Intercepted Message finds room for guitars in the arrangements, even if the keyboards take the lead, and “The Fish Needs a Bike” and “Goon” also owe a clear debt to first-era punk rock, while the title cut sounds like a love letter to synth-punk pioneers the Screamers. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, Osees also throw in the seven-minute “Always At Night” that nods to the glossier work of Spandau Ballet and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and “Ladwp Hold” closes out the LP with a cool fusion of New Romantic polish and the obsessive electronic handclaps of electroformed hip-hop. Given Dwyer’s sonic shape shifting as his band has evolved through garage rock, psychedelia, punk metal, and prog rock, a detour into synth pop is only so surprising, and on Intercepted Message he’s filled the music with enough frantic energy and lyrical urgency that this clearly comes from his musical imagination, even if it explores new territory, and as a loving re-creation of the futuristic sounds of the past, it’s well worth a listen. – Mark Deming

Tracklist:
01. Osees – Stunner (02:44)
02. Osees – Blank Chems (04:15)
03. Osees – Intercepted Message (03:26)
04. Osees – Die Laughing (04:10)
05. Osees – Unusual & Cruel (03:22)
06. Osees – The Fish Needs A Bike (03:17)
07. Osees – Goon (02:12)
08. Osees – Chaos Heart (02:46)
09. Osees – Submerged Building (02:49)
10. Osees – Sleazoid Psycho (03:09)
11. Osees – Always At Night (07:03)
12. Osees – LADWP Hold (02:01)

Download:

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