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Carrion crawler12/14/2022 Diehards and newbies alike will revel in its weird, wild well-roundedness. Hearing so many different sounds on Carrion Crawler/The Dream, it comes as no surprise that it was originally intended to be released as two EPs, but thanks to the band’s versatility the real surprise is how cohesively the songs work as one record. For sounds more familiar to the band’s past works, the off-the-rails bounce of “Crushed Glass” and graveyard dirge of “Crack in Your Eye” recall Help’s “Meat Step Lively” and The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In’s “Maria Stacks,” respectively. Putting some hands back on the controls, the looser “Robber Barons” works like a stomp-stoner hybrid, tripping and crunching its way through a murky groove, while instrumental “Chem-Farmer” mostly stays in the pocket of a Kraut-y drone, making room for Brigid Dawson’s stormy keyboard flourishes and Dwyer’s fiery guitar exclamations. And while Castlemania begged speakers to bubble over with eccentric effervescence, the assault of driving double-drum rhythms and scuzzy bass riffs on freakouts “Contraption/Soul Desert” and semi-eponymous “The Dream” threaten to blow them clean out. Recorded in June around the time of Castlemania’s release, this could be attributed to the addition of Lars Finberg ( the Intelligence), who joined the band on tour as second drummer and makes his recorded debut on this release. Its the garage rock freak-out album of the year and it comes packed with murky grooves. When such food becomes scarce, however, it will attack and kill living. Castlemania was the poppiest and most melodic we’d heard Thee Oh Sees yet, but Carrion Crawler/The Dream completely flips the script, capturing the range, energy, and freedom of their notoriously raging live performances in a way none of their previous records have. 'Carrion Crawler/The Dream' is the second release from Dwyer and co in 2011, and this time they really tap into a string of ferociously infectious songs. The carrion crawler is a scavenger of subterranean areas, feeding primarily upon carrion. The two-albums-in-one-year approach served the band well in 2009, as they offered both the shambling, acoustic-focused Dog Poison and chaos-in-control Help that year, and whether by design or coincidence, a similar trajectory emerged in 2011. But now offering Thee Oh Sees’ eighth full-length in five years, Carrion Crawler/The Dream - just five months past the release of its predecessor, Castlemania - Dwyer seems to have hit a sweet spot, slowly evolving the band rather than abandoning it. Or you might have a monster with lower than normal damage, but has an ability that causes HP loss over time to be able to answer the question with, "yes, this CR is a challenge for PCs level X-Y"Since first emerging in the musical underground in the late ‘90s, Thee Oh Sees brainchild John Dwyer has never been satisfied to rest on his considerable creative laurels, jumping from project to project (starting with noise rock duo Pink & Brown and aside from Thee Oh Sees probably best known for distortion-laden garage revivalists Coachwhips). Stats, like HP, attack bonuses, and damage should not be directly tied to CR in every case because often there are other factors that go into the only important question above.įor example, if you have a monster with a very slow movement or stationary aspect, it might have hp much higher than all other monsters of an equal CR to be able to answer the question with, "yes, this CR is a challenge for PCs level X-Y" The only important thing CR should tell you is "this monster will be a challenge for PCs of a certain level range." That's it. All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours. T-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more, designed and sold by independent artists around the world. I'm sure there's someone out there who will say, "You need to have all monsters of a certain CR fit within clear parameters for stats in order to keep balance." Here is why I don't think that's a hard and fast rule, but only a general guideline. High quality Carrion Crawler-inspired gifts and merchandise. *Edit* Let me expand on this thought that a grain of salt must be taken when evaluating mechanical balance ala a formula for monsters. In the CC's case, it used to have 8 tentacle attacks each round, to the higher +8 to hit reflects the fact that it's attacking with several tentacles, and not just one each round. It's damage might be a little low, but it has this other feature that helps offset it." I get that feedback from some of the monsters I've done as well, like "Your damage for that CR creature is a little low, it should be X-Z." And my answer is typically, "take the entire monster in context, not just a stat. I don't think it's an error, and I would caution against trying to quantify all monster stats against a formula.
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