With their third album, 2019's
Illegal Moves
, New York high-energy instrumentalists
Sunwatchers
reached their full capacity. The quartet called on elements of wooly psychedelia, politically charged free jazz, folk-blues rambling, and other disparate elements but mixed them all into something both cohesive and uniquely their own. Just about a year later, fourth studio album
Oh Yeah?
continues this hot streak, reigning in their tendency to wander stylistically somewhat as they stretch out compositionally. The album begins with a flurry of notes from guitar and saxophone on "Sunwatchers vs. Tooth Decay," a song that quickly settles into a propulsive groove. It's a nervous, skittering song defined by the interplay between wild-eyed free jazz sax playing and guitar freakouts reminiscent of
Sun City Girls
' most electrified moments. Much of
finds the band sharpening the dynamism of their playing, with long stretches of repetition turning on a dime into tightly structured playing from the full band. "Brown Ice" (perhaps a cheeky nod to
Don Cherry
's psychedelically spiritual album
Brown Rice
?) breaks out of interweaving, loop-like figures into punchy breaks and brief melodic punctuations. "Thee Worm Store" grows from an ugly, low synth tone into a mountainous riff, grinding uncomfortably as the band grows more frenzied. This song, too, shuffles between tight melodies and segments of noisy abandon. The flirtations with Krautrock and folk-blues that showed up on
aren't as apparent here. Instead of the assortment of approaches that album took,
is heavier and more consistent, closing out its six-song run with the nearly 2-0-minute-long epic "The Earthsized Thumb." Even this lengthy song, which could have easily devolved into formless jamming, is a highly composed and slowly building suite of ideas.
streamline their vision on
, growing into a more unified whole while turning in their most ecstatic and breathable compositions yet. ~ Fred Thomas