“Tonight, we were served more than two hours of the most well-thought out and powerful and intense music that I had seen in 40 years of gig going” i94bar.
“Easily one of the most ferocious live bands on the planet”Louder Than War.
“I’ve been saying it for at least seven years now Osees are the best band on the planet” Marc Riley, BBC.
Psych-punk, psychic warrior, ear worm-farmer, and possessor of many stamped passport pages John Dwyer and his band Osees(aka Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, OCS, The Oh Sees, etc) return to Australia next March following a blistering sold-out national tour in 2023. Already announced as a feature act at the 2025 Golden Plains Festival, Osees will also headline Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle and Melbourne.
The 2025 visit comes off the back of the release this month of their 28th album (yikes!) Sorcs 80. Another stab at mutant-punk it may be but Sorcs 80 is unique to the Osees catalogue in that there aren’t any guitars on the album. Two synth samples being the only sounds other than bass, drums and front-man John Dwyer’s vocals. And yet still they deliver the goods with tracks like Also the Gorilla and Termination Office being amongst their very best.
“Sorcs 80 sees the group dump guitars altogether, in favour of synths. However, this is not an album of electronica. The approach is pure rough-edged punk” The Arts Desk.
“It all makes sense when Dwyer himself describes the album as “Dexy’s Midnight Runners meets Von LMO meets The Flesh Eaters meets the Screamers kinda punk junk” Louder Than War.
But live the guitar is very much at the fore as are the duelling drums of Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon. While bassist Timothy Hellman (real name) and keyboard player Tomas Dolas are the lynchpins holding the sprawling unrestrained chaos at bay, never relenting and ensuring the whole show stays one course.
“With no need to introduce the songs to their cult following, the band crash through 23 tracks with sweat flying off the cymbals with each synced crash. Claiming to be a ‘rip off’ of a multitude of bands, Dwyer’s humble nature doesn’t change the fact that Osees are easily one of the best live bands you could see in this day and age” The Clash.
Don’t miss the best live band on the planet: Osees live 2025.
Presented by Feel
