Odd Blood is, as you may have garnered from its somewhat provocative titling, a bizarre record, its veins gushing with an unfathomable concoction of influences constantly threatening to burst the thickest of arteries with a listen as enthralling as the most shocking of heart attack-inducing discoveries. Opening with the haunting marimba intro to The Children, Chris Keating’s best vocoded impression of The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson spurts from the heart of a disturbingly subdued modern masterpiece. The alpinist undulations of Ambling Amp follow, bustling with a beaming pop hook classier than any Cheryl Cole’s spawned as of yet. The tribal howls of Madder Red, whilst not possessing of the instant impact of the majestic inspiration behind 2007’s
All Hour Cymbals, wean their way into the subconscious like medieval leeches, before the beautiful ode of nostalgia I Remember seduces sensually. The dumbfounding psych-funk of the pedantically christened O.N.E. glistens with a Santogold sheen, crazily complimenting the throwback keyboard tinklings of Love Me Girl, unknowingly producing the deadliest dance floor destroyer never to venture out into the harsh husk of strobe lights and dry ice. Mondegreen crawls out of its shell solemnly amongst a haze of Justice off cuts, before glam rock guitars emerge from the wilderness of a truly bewildering LP. Far from instant, patience and perseverance prove dividends with
Odd Blood. Oddly, bloody brilliant extraterrestrial tribal pop.
