Cons: This album won't get the exposure it deserves in the U.S.
The Bottom Line: If you are a fan of U2, The Beatles, Midnight Oil, Radiohead, Crowded House, The Verve, INXS or The Tragically Hip, you will love this album.
Nathanael73's Full Review: Odyssey Number Five by Powderfinger
A Little History
Ninety-nine percent of you reading this review are probably thinking, “Who or what on earth is Powderfinger?” The short answer is that Powderfinger are a 5-man rock band that formed in Brisbane, Australia in 1992, consisting of Bernard Fanning (vocals, guitar, keys), Darren Middleton (guitar, vocals), John Collins (bass), Jon Coghill (drums & percussion) and Ian Haug (guitar, vocals). Odyssey Number Five is Powderfinger’s fourth studio album. All of Powderfinger’s albums have gone multi-platinum in Australia, elevating them into an elite league of Australian bands that includes Midnight Oil, INXS, Cold Chisel and Crowded House. Odyssey Number Five is the first Powderfinger album to be released in the U.S.A, and in fact Powderfinger are currently on tour in North America in support of the album.
The album kicks off with Waiting For The Sun, an anthemic rocker replete with sustained reverb-drenched power-chords. Fanning delivers his lyrics with the presence of a seasoned rock god as the band builds up to the first of the album’s many singalong choruses:
There’s a place for us
Sitting here waiting for the sun
And it calls me back
Into the safe arms that I know
Waiting For The Sun is a confident and self-assured opener that rocks-out without resorting to clichés and possesses a lead-guitar line that gets into one's veins.
My Happiness, already a huge hit in Australia, has been getting airplay on alternative rock stations across the U.S. The song opens with a lead guitar that sounds like it’s being played underwater and a vocal melody reminiscent of Crowded House’s Weather With You. Powderfinger treat us to another singalong chorus:
My happiness is slowly creeping back
Now you’re at home
If it ever starts sinking in
It must be when you pack up and go,
proving they can write hooks as well as any band on the planet, even if they hail from the bottom of the earth. If an American band such as Counting Crows or Matchbox 20 had released this song it would surely be a number one hit in the U.S.
The Metre is a complex song featuring McCartney-esque vocals, string flourishes, intricate guitar work, and a killer chorus that reminds me of Sowing The Seeds Of Love by Tears For Fears in it’s use of harmony:
Welcome to the saving grace
Welcome to the saving grace
There’s a sunset on the road
Reappearing as we go
Acoustic guitars, percussion and a gorgeous melody propel the song forward. This is one of those songs that you never want to hear the end of, and find yourself singing everywhere you go (think Hey Jude).
Powderfinger crank it up a few notches with Like a Dog, a searing rocker similar to Midnight Oil at their most vitriolic (such as Head Injuries and Redneck Wonderland). The song begins with an abrasive guitar riff, pounding bass and drums, and a spoken/chanted verse with lyrics which must surely be aimed at Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard:
Now he nervously shakes as we rattle his cage
But he’s happy to be stuck back in his halcyon days
Now we’re trying hard to reconcile a history of shame
But he reinforced the barriers that keep it the same
The chorus is reminiscent of Soundgarden, with Bernard Fanning wailing like Chris Cornell. It seems to me that the lyrics of the chorus are written from the point of view of Australia’s Aborigines:
If you treat me like a dog
And keep me locked in a cage
I’m not relaxed or comfortable
I’m aggravation and rage
After the first chorus, a new riff even catchier than the first kicks in. Like A Dog is the most modern sounding song on the album, featuring a three-pronged guitar attack, a complex structure, and a supple bass groove, combined with pertinent lyrics.
Odyssey #5 (take four) is an odd little track of less than two minutes. A hymn-like vocal arrangement swells over guitar arpeggios, creating a dreamy, psychedelic interlude, before we head back into rock territory with Up & Down & Back Again, a power ballad utilizing acoustic guitars during the verses and electric guitars during the chorus. Once again the chorus is anthemic, not unlike U2:
I can barely see up and down and back again
Despite what you believe
I keep away from trouble
If who I am today’s a sign of where I’m going
I’m ready to embrace
Fanning reveals that he has already had to deal with the downside of fame with the lines, “Have you ever attempted to be yourself/When everybody wants you to be someone else.” After the chorus several guitar solos kick-in and background vocals repeat to the climax, capping off an extremely well executed song.
My Kind of Scene features restrained vocals from Fanning that sound eerily like both Bono and Dave Gahan at their best:
Tell me where I’m
Supposed to begin
An unhappy life working
Some kind of dead end job,
over an echoing bass-line, before launching into a soaring chorus that gets stuck in your head after the first listen.
A slowly building keyboard intro, similar to U2’s Where The Streets Have No Name, opens These Days, while Fanning intones:
It’s coming round again
The slowly creeping hand
Of time and its command
Acoustic and electric guitars kick-in for the chorus and drop out for the verses. This is yet another anthem containing a chorus that is impossible to resist singing along with:
This life well it’s slipping right through my hands
These days turned out nothing
Like I had planned
Middleton and Haug provide some inventive guitar solos and the band as a whole shows a degree of restraint and control that only comes with great experience. It is obvious that Powderfinger are in command – they know their strengths and how to utilize them to maximum effect.
We Should Be Together Now is the heaviest track on the album, calling to mind Nirvana with its masterful use of dynamics and great drumming from Jon Coghill. It’s one of those songs you lose yourself in while driving and suddenly find yourself with a speeding ticket. The guitar solos inspire embarrassing air-guitar mock-heroics, and the chorus is, you guessed it, perfect for raucous singalongs.
The creatively-titled Thrilloilogy is the climax of the album, with yet another soaring, catchy call-and-response chorus,
If you wait I’m gonna drive it home
Carry all of this away from here
If you wait I’m gonna drive it home
Kiss you every time the rains appear,
crashing guitars and cymbals, pounding bass, and an unconventional guitar solo that deconstructs itself, a sensational drum solo from Jon Coghill, a gentle Wurlitzer solo, choirboy backing vocals, and a final verse punctuated by bluesy electric guitar squeals that circle and take off into yet another solo. In short, Powderfinger cut loose and give it all they’ve got for just over six minutes.
If Thrilloilogy is the climax, then Whatever Makes You Happy is the relaxing after-love cigarette. This closing track contains no drums or bass, just a strummed acoustic guitar and plaintive vocals from Fanning that show he is more than capable of carrying a song on his own. It is a fitting way to end the album, a gentle release, like riding a wave into shore and washing up onto the sand.
In Conclusion
Powderfinger combines all the best elements of Australian, British and American rock. If Odyssey Number Five were released by an American band it would be the biggest album in the land. Powderfinger at times sound like U2, Crowded House, Radiohead, The Beatles, The Verve, The Tragically Hip, Midnight Oil, and Soundgarden. Never before have a band reminded me of so many others. I honestly don’t think of Powderfinger as imitators; on the contrary, I believe that they breathe the same rare air as the bands aforementioned, and that’s quite a compliment. Do yourself a huge favour and buy Odyssey Number Fivetoday.
P.S. I also highly recommend Powderfinger's previous album, Internationalist.
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