Carrion Crawler / The Dream - OH SEES, THEE

Since first emerging in the musical underground in the late '90s, Thee Oh Sees brainchild John Dwyer has never been satisfied to rest on his considerable creative laurels, jumping from project to project (starting with noise rock duo Pink & Brown and aside from Thee Oh Sees probably best known for distortion-laden garage revivalists Coachwhips). But now offering Thee Oh Sees' eighth full-length in five years, Carrion Crawler/The Dream -- just five months past the release of its predecessor, Castlemania -- Dwyer seems to have hit a sweet spot, slowly evolving the band rather than abandoning it. The two-albums-in-one-year approach served the band well in 2009, as they offered both the shambling, acoustic-focused Dog Poison and chaos-in-control Help that year, and whether by design or coincidence, a similar trajectory emerged in 2011. Castlemania was the poppiest and most melodic we'd heard Thee Oh Sees yet, but Carrion Crawler/The Dream completely flips the script, capturing the rang