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Gong Splat
by
Gong Splat Image
Metascore
70

Generally favorable reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Record Label: Castle Face
  • Genre(s): Jazz, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock, Fusion, Improvisation
  • More Details and Credits »

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. AllMusic
    Dec 16, 2021
    80
    Like all of Dwyer's improv collaborations, Gong Splat has the anything-goes feel one would expect from an impromptu jam session, but there's something in this one's combination of cosmic glide and shocked-out panic that elevates it beyond the previous releases.
  2. Uncut
    Dec 16, 2021
    70
    A crawling, paranoiac jazz-funk odyssey. It might be the best of these Dwyer & Co records to date. [Feb 2022, p.28]
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  3. New Musical Express (NME)
    Dec 16, 2021
    60
    The tracks that work on this album would fit perfectly on a spooky science fiction soundtrack, but the remaining songs really drag the collection down.
  4. Mojo
    Dec 16, 2021
    60
    As with all such improvised projects, Gong Splat is as much about the journey as the destination, but there's little meandering to Dwyer's questing. [Feb 2022, p.87]
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User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. nmarat
    Dec 23, 2021
    10
    John Dwyer, the lead singer and guitarist of Thee Oh Sees, has been releasing music for nearly 20 years, but he didn't start to gain aJohn Dwyer, the lead singer and guitarist of Thee Oh Sees, has been releasing music for nearly 20 years, but he didn't start to gain a following until he moved from the group's original home of San Francisco to Los Angeles, started playing with a full band, and began focusing on a specific type of psychedelic garage rock that was heavier than what he had done before, while still sounding like the same band. This shift would prove to be pivotal in Dwyer's career, since he would release more than a dozen albums in the next decade, all of them within the same garage-psych-punk vein, and all of them good. He would also start the Castle Face Records label, which would help foster other bands that played similar music, and eventually come to define the L.A. underground rock scene. But, as good as Dwyer would become at this sound, he would never be able to top the five songs on Gong Splat , a one-off release that came out five years before Thee Oh Sees would release their first album. Gong Splat is the best thing Dwyer has ever done, a record that's as good as anything released on the seminal '60s label Deram, the Brit psych label that released the first Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett albums. It's a record that marries the druggy, distorted garage rock Dwyer had been known for with a more psychedelic sound, a sound that's more ominous and grandiose than what he'd previously done. In some ways, it's a more conventional record than Dwyer's previous work, since it has actual songs, more hooks, and more dynamic shifts. The music sounds heavier, too, a mixture of pounding drums, reverberating guitars, and Dwyer's raspy, unhinged vocals. The opening track, "Gong Splat," is a perfect example of this, starting with a repetitive guitar riff that moves into a swirling, hypnotic section, and then into a noisy, distorted bridge that gives way to a solo that sounds like a jet taking off. "Toagut" and "Anther Dust" feature even more far-out sounds.… Expand

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