A Foul Form LP
Castle Face Records, 2022

In the ever-expanding discography of John Dwyer’s Osees, aka OSEES, Oh Sees, Ohsees, The Oh Sees, The OhSees, The Ohsees, Thee Oh Sees, Thee Oh See’s, Thee Ohsees, OCS, etc, etc, etc, this release marks the group’s punkest yet, bashing out ten high-octane blasts of punk rock fury that’s uniquely tweaked to his beautifully-skewed vision of the genre; a genre, to be honest, that’s more than outlived its initial spark many decades over. In a word, it’s fuckin’ great. 2020’s Protean Threat hinted at the fiery punch this wrecker was about to deliver, as tracks like “Scramble Suit” and “Terminal Jape” demonstrated with their highly-focused, lethal attack mode, albeit tempered by fuzzed out space rock and the psychedelic plunder of their more sprawling songs and long players. On A Foul Form, however, that fire blazes bright and nothing is held back. Most notable is Dwyer’s formidable punk bark that’s somehow even more raw than some of the wildass shit he committed to tape during his time with the Coachwhips and Pink & Brown. And in case you ever wondered what kind of sonic damage double drummers doing rock solid 1-2-1-2 punk beats could do, this is the record for you. It’s in the details where A Foul Form breathes fresh life into the genre: the slow fade out of “Too Late for Suicide”, the insideout riffs and noisy sideswipe at the end of “Scum Show”, the deep gasping breath between verses of “Fucking Kill Me”. It all adds up to make this record waaaay more fun than the typical and tedious conventional punk that’s been bashed out for ages. This oddball punk LP even ends with a cover of one of punk’s best oddball bands, Rudimentary Peni. A true touch of class, if such a thing can exist in the punk universe. In fact, A Foul Form pairs quite nicely with Rudimentary Peni’s latest LP, Great War. Even the cover art (something the Osees always excel at) demonstrates how you can do a stark black and white record cover that’s fresh, interesting, and a gazillion times better than the gazillions of Discharge imitators clogging the crusty punk record bins across the world.