Review Summary: Odd Senses, while being occasionally enjoyable, is basically Psyopus's first two albums with water poured all over them, washing most of their thoughtfulness and entertaining qualities away.
To say that Psyopus is a band that pushes the boundaries of music would be an understatement. A large understatement. Since their 2004 debut,
Ideas of Reference, Psyopus has been making some of the weirdest music I’ve ever heard, music that could be described as a mongrel of metal, hardcore/grindcore, jazz, and probably many other traits influenced by many other things, regardless if these “things” are genres of music. Their first two albums, the aforementioned
Ideas of Reference along with
Our Puzzling Encounters Considered, were both delightfully ***ed up; sometimes awesome, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes even unlistenable, but both entertaining all the way through.
Odd Senses, like its two predecessors, is still obscenely technical and experimental, but it’s ultimately lacking in focus, along with the element of fun that the two previous albums had. It’s pretty much a watered-down
Our Puzzling Encounters Considered, at times to the point where it’s completely tasteless. And “tasteless” is definitely not something I expect from Psyopus, a band that’s usually always able to get at least some kind of reaction out of its listeners.
While Psyopus’s riffs, patterns, and harmonies have always been too intricate and sprawled-out to be exactly “memorable,” there were still moments on their previous albums that would stand out more than others. And while you couldn’t exactly hum whatever riff that stood out to you, you still remembered liking it more than others, and could probably find it in whatever song it was from. There’s virtually none of that on
Odd Senses. Most of the time, either all the instruments ungracefully collide together, creating an ugly wall of sound (an unintentional “ugly,” not the “ugly” Psyopus usually goes for), or the riffs and/or harmonies stick around for too long, and end up noodling down the wankery path, taking their memorability with them. (A perfect example of this being the album’s closer, “A Murder To Child,” a 9-minute instrumental utilizing classical guitar, violin, and cello. This song goes nowhere very, very slowly. In a nutshell, it’s 9 minutes I’ll never get back.) One of the few moments that actually remained in my psyche after listening to the album was the intro to “X and Y,” a clean, jazzy melody with a really sweet bass line behind it. Luckily, this part occurs again in the song, and the rest of the song is actually pretty good. I also remember, and like, “Duct Tape Smile,” a song with an absolutely piercing guitar refrain that goes up, down, and everywhere else, but most importantly, into your memory. Yes, that may be because you find this riff terribly annoying, but you could also be like me, and like it because it’s a great representation of Pysopus’s fascinating “intentional ugly.” This song also has a really good, and dare I say, catchy vocal refrain, too. Come to think of it, it’s probably one of the best songs on the album.
“The Burning Halo” also has its good aspects, one being its actually-pretty-heavy breakdowns, that manage to be entertaining and not gimmicky. But new vocalist Brian Woodruff utilizes his death metal-esque lows often in this song, which unfortunately sound awkward, and ironically, kind of out of place.
But along with “Duct Tape Smile,” one of my favorite parts of this album is “Imogen’s Puzzle Part 3,” which is actually the instrumental “Imogen’s Puzzle” from
Ideas of Reference played backwards. It says in the liner notes that these two songs are meant to played at the same time and accompany each other. I did this, and it sounds awesome. Seriously, if you ever both of these albums and two CD players, or an i-Pod and speakers, try it. You won’t be disappointed.
Now, another thing I was disappointed with about
Odd Senses was the lyrics. The lyrics on Our Puzzling Encounters Considered were actually very elegant and poetic; you could feel the pain and raw passion poured into their writing just by reading them out loud. But on Odd Senses, just like the music, the lyrics have been watered down. Hardly anything is ever taken time to be described, resulting in compilations of words that most of the time, paint only a neutral-colored picture in your head. One example of this being from “Choker Chain;“
Every second,
Every breath
Just
Every idea
Every ***ing thought
Just me
Stop
Think of nothing beyond me.
These lyrics are probably supposed to sound repetitive, but that doesn’t change the fact that over the course of the song, they get stale and…repetitive. And the lyrical content, most of the time, is also disappointingly unoriginal. One exception being “Boogeyman,” a song which I interpret to be about how external things we‘re afraid of (like the “Boogeyman”) are created by our already fearful minds; kind of a “fearing fear” sort of thing.
So, in the end,
Odd Senses, while being occasionally enjoyable, is basically Psyopus’s first two albums with water poured all over them, washing most of their thoughtfulness and entertaining qualities away.
