Thee Oh Sees

On Brighton’s hottest night so far, the city’s fashionista tragedies were sweating through their ill advised duds in anticipation of the US’s Thee Oh Sees.
Hordes of freshly moustache afflicted art-school kids rocked that peculiar look that’s 30 per cent old school squaddie: the remaining percentage small-town rapist.
The strain of them maintaining their weak chinned profiles was soon forgotten as they went crazy ape-plop when their indie-darlings finally tore up The Hydrant. May 26.
Discordant and pummeling, short on variety, but excelling at the relentless and celebratory, Thee Oh Sees don’t do more than one speed; but the speed they do, well exceeds the adequate, is abundant in a mirthful dumbness and gets the punters moving and hollering.
Fresh from the garage, they undulate and chug sub-primate grooves that toss off brittle shards of fractured guitar; confectioned with swapped and shared duel vocals that have been fucking with the helium.
The visual and rhythmic lynch-pin, holding it all together, is the faux skinhead gingoid bassist, who’s in the grips of a powerful palsy. His head’s a perpetual blur of spasming jowl flesh and gurns. Ten out of ten for enthusiasm, the man’s a thing to behold.
Relentless, tireless and seemingly immune to the intolerable heat and a room sucked free of oxygen Thee Oh Sees nailed it for those all lucky enough to be in attendance and ownership of a hot ticket for this beyond sold-out event.

Luke Randall