The Deepsea Goes – ORAONEIROI

Purposefully mysterious, The Deepsea Goes doesn’t seem to want a whole lot of information about itself to be known. Here are a few facts/guesses: the band has toured relentlessly in its 2 years of existence, it seems to be composed of a brother-sister pair, it has released a handful of EPs and albums already… and most of all, The Deepsea Goes makes an amazingly full-sounding post-punk racket that is inspiring.

Knowing nothing about the band before listening, you would imagine that this is a standard four-piece outfit that tears up whatever stage/studio happens to have them. But this is a duo of just guitar and drums. They don’t publicize their names. Their press release is without any braggadocio whatsoever: it has just a few facts (dates/releases) and a few quotes from reviewers. It’s nearly impossible to find a decent photo of the band. This is not how most bands would choose to publicize themselves. It’s that kind of artful up-ending of expectations that runs through The Deepsea Goes in many aspects.

There hasn’t been a female drummer this ferocious since Unwound’s Sarah Lund (actually much more ferocious and less subtle than Lund). And the guitar playing is over-the-top good, in a crushing and inventive way. If you need a touchpoint, go back to the Vaz album Demonstrations in Micronesia because ORAONEIROI somehow matches it in power and conviction. The STNNNG put out the fearsome Dignified Sissy a few years ago, but it required twice as many musicians to achieve approximately the same effect.

All of the songs on ORAONEIROI begin with “There Is No,” as in “There Is No Death,” “There Is No Light,” and “There Is No Stop.” The last of these is a charging instrumental that begins with a slightly discordant guitar line and stuttering drums and then breaks into a cymbal heavy repetition of the same. This could be an unreleased Unwound track from around the time of Future of What. Many of these tracks come from that place and time, actually, in terms of inspiration. There’s really not a clunker in the bunch here. Mostly a maelstrom of guitar and drums with desperate vocals, ORAONEIROI challenges and rewards. Very nice work.

Now it’s time to check out the back catalog. And hopefully catch them live.