Artist: Odin's Court
Label: Progrock Records
Release: 2008
Rating: 3/5
Odin’s Court are an intriguing prog rock band from the US (Maryland) and a real magnet for anyone who’s put off by the endless, textbook-perfect display of muscle flexing and extending, under which whole forests of paper covered in a sea of notes sag and bend, notes the musician is obliged to play in the shortest possible time unit. Led, of course, by Dream Theater. Then there’s the whole crowd of revivalists, who are basically breathing already-breathed air, with Spock’s Beard at the helm. So everything’s good, everything’s quality, but there’s not enough stubborn individuality.
Odin’s Court go about it a bit differently. They mix so much motif variety and so many switches between different rhythms into their sound that you can talk about the absolute fragmentation of the songs. They work like an endemic cephalopod, anchored in progressive rock with its main tentacle, while the left one explores and feels out elements of metal (Manifest Destiny) and the right one reaches all the way from pop rock to melodic rock.
The vocals are the weakest link in the lineup, but the band cunningly patches that up with vocal harmonies and even a vocoder. The guys try to offer a very wide spectrum, radiating a pretty hefty bundle of musical genres. Of course, they can’t escape an occasional general feeling of genericness, which is served up right from the album’s opener Terracide, a track that tries to create a kind of seventies atmosphere, especially when it comes to the keyboards sailing along and the single-note guitar strolling with pull-offs that could have come from some Pink Floyd. And since the Dutch band Ayreon have been using this trick for quite a few years now, the thing has a much harder time thrilling the listener.
Odin’s Court are psychedelic. That means they like to experimentally and freewheelingly twist their melodies out of reach of elementary school music figures, which often gravitate toward (at first listen) a greater or lesser degree of illogicality, and which for exactly that reason carry a moment of unpredictability, and that in turn surprises positively and makes them interesting, you could even say positively off-kilter or exploratively “touched in the head”. The track that pulls this off best on the album is Cosmosera. The guys have also integrated a saxophone into their sound, which in the tracks Volatilestial and the closing Vastificant melodically pulls in the manner of David Jackson (Van Der Graaf Generator).
“Deathanity” is an album where the solos take precedence over everything. The norm is for vocals to be the center of attention on a rock album. On “Deathanity”, though, the solos and the solo duels between keyboards, guitar and bass guitar take over everything. Luckily they’re experimental enough to be interesting and appealing. That means they steer clear of textbook logic, which you get sick of quickly and which can get annoying over repeated listens of the album. In Odin’s Court’s music the bass guitar is strongly emphasized, constantly exploring melodically and fertilizing every transitional moment with its activity, giving the music a special dramatic element and adding dimensional depth to the soundscape. Some passages, in their melodic direction or rhythmic foundation, don’t hide the fact that Odin’s Court still grew up on a discography of Dream Theater records (the chorus of Obesite).
The guys offer an extremely interesting cover of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, or, in plain words, the “European anthem”. Tracks like Esoterica, Animaulic or Vastificant, for all the band’s exploratory nature, carry a good dose of compactness and go into the ears faster than the otherwise more demanding material, which will require more perseverance from you before it settles in.
You can feel in the music that the musicians are highly skilled and that they crave improvisation. From the very design of the songs, it’s not hard to figure out that Odin’s Court must be a very interesting stage attraction. The track Mammonific by design calls for comparisons to Evergrey, and it’s helped along not only by the ambience the band develops through this obscurely built track, but also by the guest vocals of Tom Englund (Evergrey). The peak of experimentation and motif fragmentation on the record is Crownet, with a guest singer going by the name of Tony Kakko, of Sonata Arctica. His vocals, of course, stay overshadowed by (again) the majority share of solos on the album, but they’re produced in such a way that they sound annoyingly electric, like an enraged little gnome whose mushroom house got eaten by a snail.
Reviews like this are tricky, because of the multilayered nature of the sound an artist offers. On top of that, even repeated listens aren’t enough to get close to an objective rating. That means Odin’s Court’s music is quality and their sound is very interesting, since it can constantly surprise. Overall, we can conclude that Odin’s Court are prog rockers of the more demanding kind, who bring a good dose of psychedelia and dark atmosphere into their sound, like to mix in short metal explosions and merrily sail through longer solos laid over mid-tempo tracks that can create a transcendental effect (Esoterica). They’re a tougher bone to gnaw on, appealing especially to all of you looking for something different, unusual and slightly “off”. In Europe, two very different but at least equally interesting bands are the Poles Riverside and the reactivated Germans Sieges Even. “Deathanity” is an album that can keep surprising you for a long time with its unpredictability. You just have to give it a chance.
Lineup
Matt Brookins – vocals, guitar
Rick Pierpont – guitar, backing vocals
Savino Palumbo – keyboards
Craig Jackson – bass guitar
John Abella – drums, backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Tom S. Englund (Evergrey) – vocals (track no. 5)
Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica) – vocals (track no. 8)
Track list
1. Terracide (4:43)
2. Volatilestial (7:30)
3. Manifest Destiny (5:14)
4. Oceanica Toxica (5:55)
5. Mammonific (5:14)
6. Animaulic (7:49)
7. Esoterica (6:06)
8. Crownet (5:01)
9. Obesite (6:18)
10. Ode to Joy (3:46)
11. Cosmosera (6:12)
12. Vastificant (2:46)
Album length: 66.34
