It’s tempting to think of the self-titled sixth album from Toronto duo Odonis Odonis as a full-circle/get-back move. After years of thrashing away in the strobe-lit industrial trenches, it feels like founding members Constantin Tzenos and Denholm Whale are reconnecting with their formative alt-rock influences, be it The Cure circa Disintegration, Power Corruption Lies-era New Order, and the 1987-92 Creation Records roster. But Odonis Odonis is less about reliving teenage dreams than confronting adult anxieties. 

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Like any musical outfit of limited means, Odonis Odonis are trying to keep their heads above water in a perfect storm of post-pandemic inflation, invasive technology, and unchecked capitalism. And that stress is only compounded when they tend to their lives jobs outside the band: Whale works in the all-hustle/no-security world of independent concert promotion; Tzenos is a compositor for film and television staring down the threat of AI in his industry, all while navigating the uncharted terrain of new fatherhood. Given all the pressures weighing on them, Odonis Odonis’ move away from industrial music feels less like mere fatigue with a specific musical aesthetic than a philosophical rejection of the automation encroaching on all facets of our lives. 

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“That’s what we were feeling, 100 percent,” Tzenos says. “With industrial music, it’s like you can hit a button now and pop that shit out. I feel the same way about a lot of pop music—anything that's heavily AutoTuned or that has a very distinct genre style is going to be easily taken over by AI. So I just thought, ‘I want to make something that’s original to us.’ We wanted to make an emotive record and relay how we were feeling about all these massive changes that have been happening, not just in our lives, but in general. Like, where the fuck is the world heading? How is that affecting us? And how can we express it in a way that people can relate it to what’s happening in their lives? If we can make an honest record and put as much of ourselves as we can into this thing, you can’t replace that with a machine.”