Today, the Toronto band Odonis Odonis dropped their long-awaited self-titled album via Royal Mountain Records.
When a band releases an eponymous album this far into their discography, it often signals a statement of identity is a moment where they’re defining their name with renewed purpose.
On their sixth album, the heavy, industrial electro-rock & dark wave sound is left behind in favour of a more alt-rock and retro-synth direction.
It’s a shift that feels like a natural evolution, revealing a more mature, refined side of the band.
About the album by Odonis Odonis:
The best way to understand Odonis Odonis’ eclectic discography is to think of it as a multi-level nightclub with various rooms that cater to different niches, but are united by a curatorial vision.
Down in the dingy basement plastered with band stickers and reeking of piss, you’ll find the trash-can-bashing, feedback-blasting, Mary Chain-worshipping surf-punk psychos heard on 2011’s Hollandaze sharing a bill with the atmospheric post-punk crew documented on 2014’s Hard Boiled Soft Boiled. On the ground floor, there’s an ultra-violet-lit black-box space where the rivetheads lurking in the shadows slowly creep toward the dancefloor and succumb to the deviant darkwave pleasures of 2016’s Post Plague and 2017’s No Pop.
And then on the upper level, you’re subjected to a sensory-overloading industrial assault and thrust into a sea of thrashing bodies that blurs the line between rave and mosh pit, as epitomized by 2021’s Spectrums.
It’s tempting to think of Odonis Odonis as a full-circle/get-back move—as opening track “The Same” lures you into its thick Disintegration fog and bleak self-harm-themed lyrics, you’re reminded of a band that, back in the early 2010s, was so enamored with The Cure that they named one of their first songs “Mr. Smith.”
After years in the industrial trenches, it feels like Odonis Odonis are reconnecting with their formative alt-rock favorites, be it Power Corruption Lies-era New Order on the shimmering “Hijacked,” or Love & Rockets on the gleaming, groove-driven goth-pop of “Come Alive” or the 1987-92 Creation Records roster on the blown-out shoegaze hymn “Hunter.”
As Tzenos, “I think those sorts of influences always seep in no matter what. But I don’t think we’re trying to be nostalgic with it.”
Odonis Odonis gets: 📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷/10.
Odonis Odonis – Odonis Odonis [Streaming]
