It's all so quiet....shhhh...shhhh.

I sometimes feel like I'm listening to a new Thee Oh Sees album every other month. It's not far from being true, these guys are stakanovist AND punk at the same time, a pretty neat combination. 

But for once, Drop is giving me the feeling something is changing. I still don't know what to think about this (and I wish somebody would tell whether to love it or burn it to the ground), but I'm confident the next album, presumably to be released within 6 months, will give me an answer. In the meantime, let's try to figure this Drop thing out.

It starts very normally, with a weird Penetrating eye piece: not only the title (I hate violence against eyes in general) but the mayhem of guitars and distorsions sounds bursting at once after a sweeet little tune played on a oldschool keyboard seems highly Theeohsees-esque. This and the hypnotic chanting, rendering everything blurry as to where the sounds stop and the music starts.

We then go to Encrypted bounce, also a good ol'classic garage piece, with half-sung, half whispered lyrics and a bass line in the pure style of what can be found on The Master's bedroom. Here and there, crying guitars are shattering the soft surface of sound and creating little messy areas of caterwaul like contemplation. 

Put some reverb on my brother, apart from being an awesome title, is starting fine but growing into something much harmonic, very 70's like and making a soft, but indubitable transition to something much more tamed and easy on the ear than what I'm used to.

Camera (Queer sound) is in this regard rather normal: guitars working together, harmonies all over the place, choir singing in the back. King's nose is then almost beatlesy.

The lens is letting us go on a peaceful tune, backed by a deep cello bass and next to no other instruments then an extra brass during chorus and a little trumpet line at the end. Softspoken lyrics about -if I'm not mistaken- being together ( well ariving at the same time) make it all so smooth it's kind of scary.

Why so scared then? The same way you get scared when knowing that somewhere there's a monster in the trunk: the few silent minutes before it comes out are when the absence of noise is daunting, sending chills down your spine and the more it lasts, the more you expect the next BANG to be a horrifying one. I will sure be very careful with the next TOS record I get my hands on. Might be bloody.