Release Date: Jun 17, 2016
Genre(s): Electronic, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Indie Electronic, Noise-Rock
Record label: Felte
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Noise and atmosphere remain key for Odonis Odonis, who put a futuristic spin on '80s industrial and post-punk — from classic NIN and Ministry to Depeche Mode and Gary Numan — on their latest, Post Plague. Such influences are churned through Odonis Odonis's unique contemporary filter; piecing interesting ideas together in an experimental way is lead-man Dean Tzenos' forte. The mixtape approach that informed the two-sided Hard Boiled Soft Boiled manifests within tracks here: elements appear, recede, reappear and coalesce to hit hard, thanks to meticulous attention to detail throughout.
Hammers hit metal, and it seems as if, at any moment, Nitzer Ebb are going to cry “guns, guns, muscle and hate” out of the speakers. Toronto’s Odonis Odonis might have had one foot in surf punk on their feedback-filled debut Hollandaze and straddled darkwave and shoegaze on Hard Boiled Soft Boiled, but on their third album they are electro-plated in industrial’s armour. Post Plague is stronger, more menacing and, as ever, on good terms with melody.
"We need to look deep into the abyss and jump head first into the darkest substance ever known" says Odonis Odonis's Dean Tzenos. He's talking about 'Vanta Black', one of the ten pieces of industrial noise that make up Post Plague. But he could so easily be describing the rest of the album too. Now three albums into their career, it's been a long and times rocky road for the Toronto trio to get to where they are now.
On their early albums and EPs, Odonis Odonis' shape-shifting combinations of sounds meant they could sound like a completely different band from one song to the next. Usually, this was a feature, not a bug: their 2014 album Hard Boiled Soft Boiled, which put its aggressive songs on the first half and gentler ones on the second, earned a Polaris Music Prize nomination. However, their Felte debut Post Plague sounds like the work of just one act -- and a remarkably focused one at that.
On its 2011 debut full-length Hollandaze, Toronto trio Odonis Odonis crafted a rowdy blend of surf/garage and noise, only to dial-down the surf and crank up the noise on the 2014 follow-up Hard Boiled Soft Boiled. At that point it became apparent that Odonis Odonis had a penchant for sweeping change from album to album. But with Post Plague Odonis Odonis take an even more radical step in a new direction, dropping the noise element almost entirely and a re-fashioning themselves as a goth/industrial-styled synth outfit.
Dust Vol. 2, No. 21Rob Noyes photo by Lindsay MetivierFor our final Dust of the year, our writers attacked their to-do lists with unusual force, as we all made an effort to finish off 2016 with a clean slate. The result is one of our longest and most varied round-ups ever. Bill Meyer, Ian Mathers ….
In the virtual reality debate, it seems that there are two sides to be taken - one unsatisfied and underwhelmed, wary of strapping a bulky headset over one's eyes, and the other perpetually enthused by the ‘immersion’ that said bulky headset has to offer. Post Plague sees the members of Odonis Odonis join the latter camp, becoming the latest musicians to jump on the virtual reality bandwagon with a VR music video for ‘That’s How it Goes’ . Citing transhumanism as a major influence, from iterations in the writing of FM-2030, the techno of Terence Fixmer and film Ex-Machina, the bandmembers attempt to figure out what tomorrow will sound like.
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