What's the first thing you think of when someone mentions Thee Oh Sees? Probably their riot-sparking live show, right? Visions of a guitar-chewing, melody-maiming John Dwyer dancing in your head, rounded out by a wild-eyed wrecking crew that drives every last hook home like it's a nail in the coffin of what you thought it meant to make 21st century rock 'n' roll?

Yeah, that sounds about right. But it misses a more important point—how impossible Thee Oh Sees have been to pin down since Dwyer launched it in the late '90s as a solo break from such sorely missed underground bands as Pink and Brown and Coachwhips. (It's now a quartet featuring keyboardist/singer Brigid Dawson, guitarist Petey Dammit, and drummer Mike Shoun, and will soon introduce a fifth member, multi-instrumentalist/singer Lars Finberg.) That goes for everything from the towering, 13-minute title track of their last LP (Warm Slime) to the mercurial moods of 2008's The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In.

Which brings us to Castlemania, the closest Thee Oh Sees have come to creating a scuffed-up, home-brewed symphony. In other words, there's more to its 16 tracks than maniacal pop music ("Spider Cider," "If I Stay Too Long") or the kind of fang-baring, riff-raking garage rock ("Corrupted Coffin," "A Wall, A Century 2") that have made the San Francisco vets one of the underground scene's few standbys. Slip on a decent pair of headphones to hear what we mean, as junk shop synths float through the ether alongside flutes, horns, mellotrons, and enough scorched bells and whistles to reward many a repeated listen. And then there's Dwyer's actual lyrics, which explore familiar themes of love, friends, drugs, and death with a skewed delivery that's uniquely his.
"I guess there is a theme going on in this record," admits Dwyer. "It's shit I didn't realize while making it—songs about bad things, packaged in a summery record about getting numb to life and its little pleasures as you take it for granted with age."

Speaking of taking things for granted, Castlemania is the perfect entry point to spreading Thee Oh Sees gospel. It won't be their only release in the coming months, either. Expect yet another full-length in the fall—"maybe our best yet," according to Dwyer—and maybe a surprise or two on Dwyer's own Castle Face imprint.

"I work a lot alone, and I hate work unless it's mine," says Dwyer, "so I am 'living the life' as my sis would say. It's been a fruitful couple of years."

San Francisco psych wunderkind Ty Segall continues a tireless musical assault on ears and minds with his third album, Melted. Segall says it sounds like "cherry cola, Sno-Cones and taffy." Indeed! Over the past two years he's released records more often than most people do laundry, but somehow there is still a heap of anticipation for this new album on Goner packed full of truly psychedelic pop songs with great vocals and exciting arrangements.

On the heels of two critically acclaimed solo albums, Segall holed up in a basement studio with Mike Donovan of the SicAlps in late 2009 and early 2010 to come up with Melted. It's a carefree yet precise balance of acoustic and electric elements. Distorted echo and thunder mix together with enough clean guitar lines and addictive choruses to deliver an album that recalls the '60s without sounding like anything created during that decade. Time melts away, vision melts away, minds melt away. Get Melted!

"Ty Segall's short, sharp songs peal out of the garage without raising the doors, sending 1960s rock riffs crashing through splintered, smart-ass lo-fi buzz." -Pitchfork

"His second album, Lemons, solidifies his standing as one to watch.... There are few moments when Ty Segall isn't irresistibly catchy." -Nylon

"Warped sonics do nothing to diminish the impact of his vigorously nostalgic riff and stomp. Segall thunders along with the timeless, impudently rowdy energy of a cement basement dance-off." -Spin