Listen for it: that tingling sensation you feel when a song hacks into your brainwaves and begins reprogramming thoughts. Odawas would be a good name for this special feeling, but it better suits a band that specializes in this feeling.
Inspired by a vision quest worthy of its tribal namesake, Odawas conjures the musical spirit animal that is The Aether Eater. The Bloomington, Ind., trio makes its full-length debut on a hand-stitched mural of high concept and folksy nuance (as seen through 3-D glasses).
Juxtaposing a lonely astronaut narrative with themes from Dante's infamous walking tour of hell, the album hypnotizes your senses as it travels through galactic realms of psych, twee, indie pop and trad-rock.
Truly out-of-this-world, The Aether Eater resides in a cavernous environment of mystery that yields echoes of Neil Young and The Flaming Lips.
And when storybook becomes horror show, "Kids" erupts into smoldering organ tones before Odawas spins the sound into reverse orbit with snake-charming smooth jazz. Grieving harmonicas animate the last chapter ("Virgil") whilst unraveling a requiem for the process of discovery that is now only a memory.
But for all its spaced-out allegory, The Aether Eater hits frightfully close to home. By exploring the astral plane between earth and the last frontier, Odawas proves that the heavens might just be a mirror image of hell.
