Odawas - Raven And The White Night - [JAGJAGUWAR]
2007-04-29
What starts off as an adventurous journey into the depths of the oceans, with water dark as the night and exotic fish - turns out to be a little swim in a goldfish aquarium with a few unique fish swimming around.
"Odawas" which in their first album, "The Aether Eater", have explored space, are now back for further exploration of the sonic abyss and boundaries of our consciousness. Lots of ambient keyboards, reverbed vocals and clean acoustic guitars. This combination could've turned them to the most interesting Avant-folk group around, but something went wrong during the exploration.
Ironically speaking, this album sets its own high standards and then fails to reach them at the same time. Some tracks are more then good, and might even be beyond great, the problem is that those are the tracks that sound as if they have no relation to the rest of the album. The rest have nice concepts in them, but stay in the shallow water for too long.
The opening track, "The Maddening Raven", explores a dark cave filled with ambient keyboards and piano riffs, alerting you from what is to come next. The piano riffs snick around the resonating keyboards like a figure stocking you from the dark, moving quickly but mysteriously in the dark, the keyboards turn hollywoodically big opposing to the piano part - Grandiose in contrast with the tempting darkness.
The second track is more of a style-representing track; Acoustic guitars and reverbed vocal parts hanging above it, the dark cave turns into a slow ride into the depths of the ocean, the pale blue water gets darker and fish start hovering around you as you advance.
Third and fourth tracks sound very much alike and like the second track, though the third track, "Getting to another plane", holds great keyboard and guitar solos. Sounding a lot like early Floyd, when they were still setting their controls for the heart of the sun, the fourth track "Alleluia" has an enchanting kind of a whistling solo which gives it its uniqueness.
The best track on the album in my opinion is number 5 – "Love Is". A new-age background music supporting a flaming, aggressive, apocalyptic speech about love being the only weapon we've got to fight with. This could have been the highlight and proud moment of many post-rock bands.
This is the point where you comprehend that the water won't get any darker, and the variety of fish will not extend. This is the deepest that this submarine goes (deep is good in this case). After track number 5 (excluding track number 8), the album has a hard time lifting itself up and measuring up to its starting tracks. Their signature sound becomes too dominate and takes the main stage, making the tracks feel very monotonous.
"Odawas" do a great job in convincing you to come along for the ride, and the road you take to get there is exciting and intriguing, but the second you're there, it's only a matter of time before you lose interest. Every track for itself is a point of curiosity, but listening to them one after the other holds a great chance for boredom.
Roy Povarchik
