When Bass Drum of Death started touring the rock club circuit outside Oxford, Mississippi, several years ago, there was a legitimate concern that the band’s appeal might be limited to fans of the garage scene. With a seemingly never-ending series of tour dates, BDoD nonetheless transformed rooms full of normally too-cool-to-rock indie crowds into a mob of sweaty, stage-diving- maniacs. Meanwhile, Madison Avenue, eager to cash in on hip cachet, took notice. Since the release of 2011’s GB City, “Get Found” has been featured in FOX promos for the NASCAR season. Rockstar Games’ megaseller Grand Theft Auto V helped to promote last year’s self-titled album. Gamers terrorized the freeways of Los Santos, living out their cops-and-robbers fantasies, as “Crawling After You” blasted through their car stereo speakers. Bass Drum of Death are teetering on the brink of reaching a mainstream audience, and Rip This is their attempt to record an unapologetic rock album for people outside their normal fan base.
In the past, BDoD brainchild John Barrett wrote and recorded all the material and toured with a revolving lineup of hired guns on drums and guitar. This time around, drummer Len Clark joins Barrett as a full-time member and collaborator. The duo began discussing plans for a new record when touring with Unknown Mortal Orchestra in 2013. Barrett and Clark then convinced UMO bassist Jacob Portrait to take on the role of producer when the band booked a session in March at Prairie Sun Studios in Sonoma County, California. With a few rough demos, Barrett, Clark, and Portrait hunkered down for two weeks and cranked out the band’s first proper studio album. Rip This retains BDoD’s trademark sorry-for-partyin’ swagger while scrapping the crackling hiss and lo-fi fuzz. The result is an record that still relies on an obliterating attack of heavy guitars, danceable hooks, and kinetic drumming, but will appeal as much to KISS fans as the music freaks and geeks who worship Nuggets. Both a challenge to music critics and a rock call-to-arms, the title says it all. You’re not going to hear many records this year that rip like this, so shotgun a beer, tune in, and turn up.
credits
releases 07 October 2014
Vocals & Guitar: John Barrett
Drums: Len Clark
Produced by Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Our lad John P. Dwyer has been lancing eardrums with Thee Oh Sees in an ever-escalating flurry of records for the past six years. Since the release of The Master s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In announced a new loud era (and excepting a few momentary detours into home-baked territory Dog Poison and Castlemania, for example), Dwyer and company have pum- meled a bit harder each time out, cementing their reputation as a live force to be reckoned with and leaving legions sweaty and bruised in the process. Late last year, after years of relentlessly touring the world, the word got out... Dwyer s moving to Los Angeles (fear not, still California!) and Thee Oh Sees are taking a much-needed hiatus with a shifting of gears ahead and a new album on the way. This is that album. Drop was recorded in a banana-ripening warehouse (no joke) with hair-farming studio warlock Chris Woodhouse playing drums; it s also graced with the presence of talented gurus Mi- kal Cronin, Greer McGettrick and Casafis adding horns and vocals. The result pushes the familiar polarities of the group far- ther outward than ever before. Opener Penetrating Eye might be the heaviest Oh Sees song yet, Transparent World and Put Some Reverb On My Brother foam with seasick fuzz, and yet the ballads, like the harpsichorded King s Nose and the lush and stately closer The Lens, extend their oeuvre into mello- tronic, far-out pop with delicacy and grace. This schizophrenia heralds the man and the band into an un- seen future in classic Dwyer fashion restless energy harnessed into exquisitely crafted jams, with an emphasis on the pensive and the paranoid in turns.