Style: Instrumental Prog Metal
Recommended for fans of: Buckethead, Rush, Pelican
Review by: Mark
Country: US-WA
Release date: July 22, 2022
In my very first review for the blog (which may as well have been a few days ago) I waffled on about the challenge of writing instrumental prog albums and that one of the primary pitfalls is an over-reliance on the foundational instruments of guitar, bass, and drums from a compositional perspective. All too often we see these albums throw as many riffs and ideas as they possibly can at the listener, while still needing to check off that 40+ minute runtime and pepper in enough virtuosic noodling to keep things interesting along the way. For comparison, consider post rock which arguably is the opposite side of this same coin, often letting a single, tranquilizing idea ring out for half an album. The issue between these approaches is essentially the same; memorability. How does a band stand out with a very limited set of tools in their belt?
Venomous Rhetoric is the fifth full-length outing by Washington’s Odyssey, and I must admit I was surprised to see their discography that deep. This band formed all the way back in the prehistoric year of 2007, and after a courteous tour through their previous releases it would seem that they’ve been at this specific flavour of riff-based, instrumental prog metal for a while, albeit with mild variations on the formula. After this many years, we should be good to expect a refined piece of work, so where are we now?
What this album is an almost 50/50 blend of Rush and Motorhead, lightly sprinkled with the tonalities and aesthetics of second wave black metal and psychedelia. Bear with me on that assessment. Both the guitar and the bass have a vintage, fuzzy tone that works very well in making the record sound vibrant and lively, and this combines well with the drums that are pleasantly natural sounding. Although rustic and homemade-feeling when compared to contemporary productions, the scale of the sound is much more akin to a few dudes in their garage and this is something that definitely works in the album’s favour. Overly compressed drums and guitars would have colluded with it’s shortcomings to make it a total dud, so I’m glad it sounds the way that it does.
What shortcomings you say? Well, let’s get into it. What undoubtedly stains Venomous Rhetoric the most is it’s composition. Every track across the album harbours some awesome sections; whether they be colossal sludge riffs, intensely dissonant black metal chord progressions, exotic guitar solos against crystalline cleans, the list goes on… However, it’s how all these parts are packaged and pieced together that is lackluster. This album fell hard into the trap of sneezing as much writing as possible at the listener, resulting in tracks that never succeed in maintaining a consistent tonal aesthetic throughout and, overall, feel regrettably disjointed. “Harsh Truths” is a prime example here. In the first thirty seconds we are treated to multiple variations on a single idea, which is engaging songwriting, but then it takes a hard turn and, before the first two minutes are up, we’ve gone through five or six unique and unrelated sections involving rhythm changes, modulations, and so on. Making this work in progressive songwriting isn’t easy. It requires a delicate hand to ensure these transitions between ideas are suave and the spirit of the song is maintained throughout. By itself, this blemish on the album would hardly be egregious, but unfortunately it is not alone.
The other issue marring Venomous Rhetoric is the complete absence of any additional layers beyond the three main instruments present. There are so many sections throughout this album that would have been greatly elevated by a synth pad, rhythmic patch, or some kind of keys filling in the space behind the band, and the compositional similarities to Rush just make this more apparent. This compounds heavily with the aforementioned problem of structure as making it all work with so few ingredients is incredibly difficult for anything that passes the average EP in runtime. Even a second guitar adding some texture, like a heavily reverberated trills or bends, would have mitigated things somewhat and overall this record would have struggled less with the problem of memorability that plagues this sub-genre.
I am by no means offended by Venomous Rhetoric, just disappointed. There is so many killer riffs and idea sprinkled throughout this album, but the whole package just fell well short of greatness by failing to piece them together coherently and asking these base ingredients to support a 42 minute runtime. After so many years of doing this, I would have expected more from Odyssey and it leaves me doubtful for the future.
Recommended tracks: Death Fixation, Cult Of The Word, Liturgy
You may also like: Snowblind, Achymer, Transitory
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Odyssey is:
– Jerrick Crites (guitars)
– Jordan Hilker (bass)
– Lukas Hilker (drums)
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