Tracklist: 1. Carrion Crawler 2. Contraption/Soul Desert 3. Robber Barons 4. Chem-Farmer 5. Opposition 6. The Dream 7. Wrong Idea 8. Crushed Grass 9. Crack In Your Eye 10. Heavy Doctor Whats the first thing you think of when someone mentions Thee Oh Sees? Probably their riot-sparking live show, right? Visions of a guitar-chewing, melody-maiming John Dwyer careening across your cranium, rounded out by a wild-eyed wrecking crew that drives every last hook home like its a nail in the coffin of what you thought it meant to make 21st-century rock n roll? Yeah, that sounds about right. But it misses a more important pointhow impossible Thee Oh Sees have been to pin down since Dwyer launched the project in the late 90s as a solo break from such sorely missed underground bands as Pink and Brown and Coachwhips. (While Dwyer still records songs on his own, Thee Oh Sees is now a five-piece featuring keyboardist / singer Brigid Dawson, guitarist Petey Dammit, drummer Mike Shoun and multi-instrumentalist / singer Lars Finberg.) That restlessness extends to everything from the towering, thirteen-minute title track of 2010s Warm Slime LP to the mercurial moods of 2008s The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In. Now, Thee Oh Sees chase the home-brewed symphonies of Castlemania with the scrappy, high-wire hooks of Carrion Crawler / The Dream. Originally envisioned as two EPs, it was cut live to tape in less than a week at Chris Woodhouses Sacramento studio in June, reflecting the battering-ram bent of the bands live show better than any bootleg ever could. As Im sure most would agree, explains Dwyer, Castlemania was more of a vocal tirade. This ones meant to pummel and throb. That it does, whether one blasts the slow, speaker-bruising build of The Dream, the sunburnt organs and dovetailing guitars of Crack in Your Eye or the interstellar instrumental Chem-Farmer, a perfect example of what happens when one takes a well-oiled machinea gang of rabid road warriors, reallyand adds a second, groove-locked drum set to the mix. To listen is to realize that Dwyers music is as manic as the underground comic inclinations of his artwork; colorful and confusing in a way thats more than welcome. Its downright refreshing, like a slap in the face at 5:00 in the morning. Or, as Dwyer puts it, You have to leave a mark somehow.