Odds - Crash the Time Machine (2023)

Alternative bands from the '90s continue to reunite. Or in the words of Vandouver's Odds, this is an age when long silent guitar bands have decided to … yes, crash the time machine. Aware of the relevant autobiography tucked into the title of their first full length since 2009, chief singer songwriter Craig Northey betrays his doubt in lines from the title track: "And why go back to when we couldn't breathe/ And pay lip service to what we believe." Longtime fans can rest easy: the band's resemblance to Elvis Costello is still pronounced and unmistakable both in approach and Northey's way with a dense verse like, "Mouth foams with your menacing tones/ Got no point but you're driving it home/ An educated guess led to taking a chance/ Now an innocent victim of circumstance"("Fall Guy"). The band's overall vision and m.o. also remain the same feature Northey's voice, write hooks, and arrange them in creative ways. On "The Traveling Light," horns and violins add body and weight. The next track, "My Mind's on Other Things," is Odds at their guitar-band best, and the album's obvious single. Leaning on a sturdy pulsing chorus, Northey wonders, "Fight or flight, I wish I might and who are you?" before regrettably adding a sophomoric touch in "And you're ahead of me/ Saying words that are making me piss, making me piss my pants," before rebounding with a reach back that works, "What would you do if I sang out a tune?/ Would you stand up?" The misses here are few, though.

Crash The Time Machine is the sound of old pros at work. Recorded over five years in their home studio Doghouse of Thunder in North Vancouver and later massaged by co-producer Steven Page, the sound is crisp and compressed enough to give it obvious punch. Even their salute to eastern European musical activists, "Revolution Singing," which varies the tempo, and goes for an overly joyous vibe, works as intended. Led by acoustic guitar, the closing ballad "Somehow in a Dream," has a pleasing arc and features Northey sounding like himself and no one else, in rising chorus lines of "We can reach you." No need for time travel, it's like Odds never left.