Odesza - The Last Goodbye
Odesza
The Last Goodbye
By: Heidi Bray
The Last Goodbye is a neat and tidy record. It sounds complicated without ever sounding busy - in fact, quite the opposite.
The first time I saw Odesza live was years ago. The duo took the stage exactly on time and faced each other half-turned away from the audience the entire show.
They didn’t acknowledge the crowd until the end, with a generic thank you clap. They were focused on creating and playing great music.
They played for precisely 90 minutes - and they killed it. It was a glorious show and completely neat and tidy.
The latest, their fourth studio album, feels similar. The Last Goodbye sounds complicated without ever sounding busy - in fact, quite the opposite. The 13-track album sounds impossibly stripped back despite incredible layering with imaginative instruments and dynamic production techniques.
However, listening through its entirety, there are times when it somehow falls into a lull.
The Last Goodbye is a safe, neat, and tidy record with all the strengths that make Odesza one of the most impressive electronic acts over the last decade. Sitting in a unique intersection at the corner of melancholy and dance, the duo of Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight create music that will make you feel.
The most vital moments on the album come when Odesza is tugging at your heartstrings. While more upbeat ‘dance’ tunes like “Behind the Sun” and “The Last Goodbye” are powerful, move-your-body tracks, it’s ultimately songs like the closer “Light Of Day” where Odesza thrives.
Odesza sprinkled five singles over several months out to the public in advance of the record. The singles make up the meat of The Last Goodbye, and are truly the engine of the vehicle. However, the impact of the album is diminished with these songs already being so familiar to the world by the time the album is released.
The Last Goodbye is so polished that it sometimes lulls you into zoning out.
The production is incredibly lush, with fields of bright sun-kissed chords and precise layering. While the chords are sometimes a little predictable, spoonfed electronic progressions, and overly simplistic, it’s the sounds and emotion they’re able to create so subtly that you might not even notice it. They are seemingly focused more on the fills and transitions between bars than the kick drums that start them.
In a statement, Odesza said, “Over the past few years we’ve been able to reflect on who we are, what it means to do what we do, and in the end, who we are doing this for.”
The statement is apt. The Last Goodbye sounds exactly like Odesza - exactly what they’ve always wanted to be. The album feels like the culmination of a career building to this point and being fully realized.
It’s the album they’ve always wanted to make - doubling down on their specific atmosphere and continuing to build up their existing sound instead of breaking new ground.
And while that might be a little too safe, a bit too neat and tidy - it’s still a beautiful listening experience. It just might make you sink more into your couch than stand up and move your body.
