Hey there tech fiends, it's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands to hear, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
To clear things up right off the bat, this is The Odious from Portland, Oregon, not The Odious Construct from California though I enjoy their music as well. If you’ve never heard of The Odious, they started out as a fairly “normal” sounding tech-death band on their initial 2011 EP, That Night A Forest Grew. An impressive first release by a band whose members were all very young at the time and whose progressive music flirtations and experimental inclinations even then were setting them apart from the pack.
In 2012, they dropped one of my utmost favorite proggy mind tech-death albums ever, Joint Ventures. Then a few years went by and only a single song dropped in 2016 called “Arbiter Of Taste”. Finally, our patience has been rewarded and the group’s absolutely mental new album Vesica Piscis drops this Friday, June 21st. An early stream of it aired yesterday and it’s embedded for you below to check out.
The first song “Scape” is a quirky little instrumental but it quickly fades into “Repugnant”, one of several solidly tech-death songs on the album. Yet even as one of the more solidly tech-death cuts, "Repugnant" is still quite unconventional material. I was hesitant to cover this here because while there’s plenty of tech-death throughout the album, it’s an ambitious and expansive listen drawing from numerous genres and styles at the same time. But, for those who crave more tech-death at all times than this, you can and should put on their two prior releases. So now I feel like you’re covered whether you dig the out there sound of Vesica Piscis or want to sink your teeth into something a bit more familiar tech-death wise with the 2011 and 2012 efforts found on Bandcamp.
Vesica Piscis, like their other works, doesn’t really sound like any other band out there and the impressive masterful songwriting is what sells it for me most of all. I like to think of them as The Faceless being played by Between The Buried And Me which should give you a solid grounding for what’s in store. Other bands, they cite as influence such as Mr. Bungle, Genghis Tron, The Red Chord, Devin Townsend, and Meshuggah also add to the sonic make-up of this daring efforts.
At the end of the day, this album isn’t going to be everyone’s thing, but, it’s absolutely the type of release that people who are into what The Odious do, will rightfully praise Vesica Piscis as a memorable breath of fresh air. The sheer density of the album makes this the sort of material you need to give numerous spins to in order wrap your head around it. Though concise and more solidly tech-death cuts are present as mentioned and as a starting point for newcomers maybe check out “Repugnant”, “Hastor the Shepard Gaunt”, “Heavy Rhetoric”, and “Misuse”. But, as I said, even their songs that lean far more towards progressive metal still contain plenty of scorching tech-death sections.
The Odious – Vesica Piscis is an incredible release reinventing tech-death on its own terms. Beyond its jaw-droppingly expansive musical scope, a big part of what makes this special is the soulful emotive undercurrent to it frequently driven by beautiful singing just as the band has done from their inception. So check out the recently launched full album stream of Vesica Piscis below and see how you feel about it. If you’re into it, pre-orders can be placed through The Odious Bandcamp Page. Even if this one leans a bit proggier than some readers might like, you might enjoy their prior two releases more so do check them out on Bandcamp. You can follow the group over on The Odious Facebook Page.
