Track Review: The OhSees

“The Guilded Cunt”
from “The Cool Death of Island Raiders”
7.5/10

Contary to what would be totally hilarous, I didn’t pick this track to review because of its name. I picked it because, title aside, “The Guilded Cunt” is the among the strongest tracks (as well as the opener) on the OhSees most recent album, “The Cool Death of Island Raiders”, released on Narnack Records earlier this year.

Though the swampy, suffocated production is apparent within the tracks first few seconds and obscures some of the track’s better moments, the vocal interplay and whisper of a rhythm is colorful enough to make a statement regardless. The band itself sounds as if it’s perpetually trying to keep up with the rhythm, but succeeds in balancing the fine line between loose and sloppy. The quirky, slightly dissonant guitar is the most conspicuous of the instruments, but the preschool-caliber drum beat, with its hissing hi-hats, is the silent anchor of the song and keeps the sonic backdrop rolling.

Dwyer spends the entire song with his head in the clouds, his back-of-the-mouth falsetto lending verses like “Tell me you love me / tell me that is all you know to do” the teenage innocent they require to make the jump from clichéd to charming. Brigid Dawson’s vocals serve a similar purpose, hiding in a simple harmony behind Dwyer’s before emerging forth to color what could be referred to as the chorus with a bright, descending vocal riff.

The song’s 2:43 runtime is short enough to keep the song’s few elements interesting, and, when the last delayed guitar chord echoes out of the mix, we are left with a better conception of Dwyer’s ability to make something simple sound entirely original by pushing the boundary between the totally exhausted and the wonderfully absurd. It’s a shame that Dwyer didn’t deliver more tracks like this one.

Download:
The OhSees - The Guilded Cunt

- Dominick Duhamel -

Tags: OhSees, Guilded Cunt, Island Raiders, mp3