Sucks Blood

*Sucks Blood* is an apt title for the fifth studio album of John Dwyer’s the Oh Sees; it’s chockfull of haunted-sounding songs perfect for a garage-rock-themed Halloween party. The darker reverb and slower tempos here allow these songs to move at a zombie’s pace creating bottled tension that makes for a remarkably original vibe. Following the graveyard stomp of “It Killed Mom,” the falsetto-laden title-track emerges with a spooky Theremin and a cobweb encrusted feel that fits closer to the go-go dirges of Oakland’s Gris Gris than the high-waisted garage punk of Thee Headcoats. Throughout *Sucks Blood*, Brigid Dawson’s ghostly vocal harmonies add another dimension, especially on the beautifully bizarre “Ship” where distant bells intertwine with a guitar so affected in layers upon layers of effects that it sounds like a rusty buzz saw tearing into a wooden casket. She sings lead on “Invitation,” a slow-burning ditty washed out in sheets of tape delay and blankets of warm comforting static. Of the two untitled songs that end the album, the first moves at the pulse of a slowing heartbeat as three part harmonies sing under the windy whistles of a musical saw.