Carrion Crawler / The Dream

Editors' Notes Thee Oh Sees routinely use their albums to explore well beyond the blistering ground zero of their garage-psych roots, and this 2011 opus is no different. For every heady whiff of familiarity, we’re treated to attention-grabbing zigzags into mock-sinister psych boogie (“Contraption/Soul Desert”), syrupy ragas (“Crack in Your Eye”), and funk-stabbed instrumentals (“Chem-Farmer”). Beyond that, keyboardist Brigid Dawson spends more time at the mic, and there’s no ignoring the powerhouse rhythm section that holds down the California band’s divergent trailblazing.