Odawas - Raven and the White Night

Odawas. Raven and the White Night. 2007. 3.5 stars.

Odawas play wispy psychedelic folk songs that are tinged with subtle symphonic and harmonic elements. While their sound fits nicely along the dreamy shoegaze of bands like Grouper, Odawas’ take is slightly more complex, and also more confounding. They certainly don’t seem to like sticking in one place for too long, as their ethereal acoustic moments can take flight into bluesy jam-rock solos (”Getting to Another Plane”), often sounding like a bizarre cross between Neil Young’s Crazy Horse and the haunting melancholy of Jeff Buckley. When they do decide to settle down on a singular vision, they have incredible emotional clarity, like on the heartbreaking “Alleluia’ where gentle whistles and mournful vocals take on a hypnotic effect.

There are odd left tuns taken as well, like the bombastic orchestral intro of “The Maddening of Raven” or the speech giving samples on “Love Is… (The Only Weapon With Which I Got to Fight)”, accomapnied by electric instrumentation. These tracks point towards some overarching narrative or theme for the album, but they don’t seem to blend with the more cryptic and fluid sounds of their pared-down acoustic counterparts. Once again, the band’s often unnerving sense of dread and tension is better expressed in the quiet, rustic corners of their songs, where their humble tones lead to humbling passages.

Fortunately, the band’s shining moments outnumber the confusing ones, and they frequently take on the astral quality that shapes and defines the modern psych-folk movement. So if you are looking for something heady, trippy and pastoral, Odawas will be sure to satisfy. Once you get past the stranger fixtures of this record, the eclectic musicianship and experimental edge will lift you up. How high you go may depend on the environment in which you take this in.

Odawas “Alleluia” - set to Reuters’ best photos of 2007

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