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Aug 16, 2019Any band looking to play psychedelic music should look to this album (and Smote Reverser) to fully understand the possibilities that exist within (and far outside) of the style and just how far a band with limitless imagination can go if they don't settle for cliches and easy answers and push hard to make something unique and beautiful like the Oh Sees do here (and almost always.)
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UncutAug 15, 2019Savour all the strangeness, the power and the glory that fill the present. [Oct 2019, p.22]
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Aug 16, 2019Face Stabber stands as arguably Oh Sees’ most mature and nuanced work to date, and as evidenced by this album, the band is riding a steep, upward trajectory that has continued for an astonishing period of time.
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Aug 26, 2019There is definitely room for some trimming. A third could easily be trimmed without damaging the listening experience too much. At the core of Face Stabber is a fun album that gets better with each listen but when it drags, and in places it does, it feels like a laborious chore to get to the good stuff again. The album lives up to its name. From the moment it starts it is an unrelenting, and visceral, album.
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Classic Rock MagazineAug 20, 2019As bananas as it is brilliant, Face Stabber is a poke in the eye for anyone who says guitar bands are running out of ideas. [Sep 2019, p.83]
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Aug 15, 2019Face Stabber's length owes much to its two centre-piece tracks, which end each side of this double LP, Scutum & Scorpius (14:24) and Henchlock (21:02) which sees the band go in full-on long jam mode. However, Dwyer counterbalances this with some of his shortest, sharpest, shocks, maintaining the balance between punk and prog rock that only he apparently can.
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Q MagazineAug 15, 2019Face Stabber finds him in cosmic wigout mode, double majoring in late-'60s psychedelia and early-'70s Krautrock. [Sep 2019, p.115]
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Aug 21, 2019Oh Sees’ most obvious strength has always been their own restlessness and commitment to exploration, and as Face Stabber’s dozen other tracks ricochet between super-potent pysch, punk, noise and funk, they prove that this is still one of the very best and most adventurous rock bands on the planet.
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The WireAug 22, 2019They sound for good or ill like they’ve beamed in from psychedelic hard rock’s boom period too. ... Face Stabber is 80 minutes long, with two songs accounting for 35 of those minutes, and betrays mild hubris as regards their ability to jam interestingly. [Sep 2019, p.60]
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Aug 28, 2019Spontaneity is a live band’s great asset, and that’s hard to convey in a recording studio, but the record is endearing and absorbing even when it stumbles.
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MojoAug 15, 2019A questing, festering record, Face Stabber isn't for the faint-hearted, but its lows are outnumbered by exhilarating highs. [Sep 2019, p.95]
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Aug 15, 2019Dwyer’s band are still the masters of genre-leading and genre-defining garage-psych-founded mayhem but Face Stabber veils that slightly behind bloated long cuts and a lack of standout individual tracks.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 23 out of 26
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Mixed: 2 out of 26
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Negative: 1 out of 26
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Sep 1, 2019This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Aug 27, 2019
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Aug 17, 2019