Odor Eater

Odor Eater

But For Who?

Feel It

On Odor Eater’s third album, their first for Feel It Records, But For Who?, Harley Moore and Logan Devlin have appropriated various sonic idioms of the New Wave employing a similarly playful mode of critique lyrically and musically while updating the social context to reckon with the maelstrom of contemporary pop culture. The Olympia/Portland duo have created a record that speaks the language of their influences fluently but with a definitively contemporary accent—a bricolage of the sounds of Devo, Bill Nelson, Vince Clarke-era Depeche Mode, and Kraftwerk. Devlin and Moore bring fresh ears to this style of composition, mixing freely the aforementioned with a more fully developed sound of their own that is brighter this time around—less heavy and more danceable. Over the course of 11 songs, propulsive drum machines bip bap in deceptively simple patterns, with Devlin’s zig-zagging bass lines shuffling under arpeggiated chords and rhythmic synth leads while Moore’s vocals act as a sort of post-everything Virgil guiding us through the contemporary inferno. Lasers zip-zap in the background, machine-like sounds whoosh and whirr, percussive blips and beeps pop here and there, along with occasional clarinet parts provided by Moore. Meanwhile the lyrics, written and sung by Moore, deal with a wide range of personal and political issues, their vocal delivery often calling to mind the expressive dynamics of Stateless era Lene Lovich—at times veering towards the shouts and howls of Lydia Lunch. There’s songs that deal with genocide, the MAGA cult, and social one-upmanship—and there’s a couple of...