My fingers found the record before my eyes did.
That’s not the reason I bought Grave Blockers, the 2006 EP from what was then spelled The Ohsees, though we might as well call them the Rolling John Dwyer Machine. It’s not even the album I was looking to put on. But my fingers wandered in the crate, and when my fingers brushed the rough, corrugated cardboard feel of the album cover, my curiosity (and my fingers) grasped hold and pulled it up and out. Bought it years ago. Never played it.
(a common refrain)
It’s fascinating to hear how much more dynamic the band was 20 years ago. Grave Blockers opens with the acoustic “I Agree,” and while there’s no escaping the Dwyer-isms (the heavily processed vocals, for example), I can’t get over how pretty the arrangement is. Fiddle and acoustic guitars give the track an Appalachian vibe, mixing well with the garage aesthetic the band never strays too far from. The title track loses the groove and adds a lot of atmosphere for something that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Tom Waits record. It feels of a piece with the opener, both being recorded in New York with Dave Sitek.
The rest of the EP was home-recorded, and the acoustic, homespun feel continues with “Burning Bridges” and the wistful instrumental “Cunny Sharms,” introducing a side of Dwyer’s playing I’m unfamiliar with, having come of age, so to speak, with the band during their mid-2010s run. The second side opens up with a demo of “I Am Slow,” and it’s another delicate piece, accompanied by the sound of birds flying overhead. There’s an “official” version on the OCS Vol. 3 album, but that’s a whole other chapter of Dwyer’s output I haven’t dug into yet. On its own, without the context of the other version, it’s still lovely. It’s followed by perhaps the best track on the EP, another instrumental. “The Great Crush” is a lovely duet between Dwyer’s and Petey Dammit’s guitars, and it makes me really want to hear this kind of thing incorporated into the kraut-styled attack he has going now.
Grave Blockers ends its all-too-brief runtime with two drones, both of which turn on the electronics and get outright spacey. They’re more leftovers and snippets of ideas than proper songs, but it’s a nice way to ease out of the EP.
As I settle into the droning frequency, I think that’s why I have this record, and why I consume it: as much as I love this band, the last five or six years of output have been so bricked in terms of dynamics, so in your face that any sense of space in a recording feels like an exhalation. I really needed an exhalation this morning, and when I get too saturated with Dwyer’s modern direction (long may he travel his own road), this will do nicely to bring me to another head place.
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