The Agit Reader

Jimi Goodwin
Odulek

March 27th, 2014  |  by Stephen Slaybaugh

Jimi Goodwin, OdulekDoves may have been the great unsung Brit rock heroes of the turn of the century, at least on this side of the pond. In the States, the band occupied a middle ground where they received neither the grand critical accolades nor the wide-scale commercial success of some of their English contemporaries. Regardless, though, they made four records as good as any released in the new millennium, and while the band has said they are just taking some time off, after four years of inactivity, it seems that break has become a break-up.

This notion is, of course, reinforced by the release of the first solo album by Jimi Goodwin, the band’s bassist and vocalist. However, the record bears the kind of eclecticism one often associates with a side project divergence intended to clear out all the odd and ends that didn’t fit within the band parameters. On Odulek (Heavenly Recordings), Goodwin seems content to follow his muse’s every whimsy, flitting between straight-laced singer-songwriter fare to fanciful electronica with plenty of bells and whistles. None of this is out of his range, though, and it’s also easy to hear bits of Doves, as well as their predecessor, Sub Sub, throughout the record. “Didsbury Girl” is the most obvious, a track that soars between quiet reverie, ornate refrains, and eventually, the kind of anthemic clamor that Doves did so well. Goodwin does a 180 on the subsequent “Live Like a River,” which vacillates between a squawking synth and a roaring guitar as the backing constantly juxtaposes with his rich voice. But the album’s oddest moment is “Man V Dingo,” a sonic carnival ride that goes from chintzy keys to horn-punctuated ruckus within a matter of minutes.

Goodwin covers a lot of ground here, not only track-to-track, but within each song, as on “Oh! Whiskey,” which develops from a simple folksy number to something more splendorous. That the singer manages to hold all this together would be the most impressive feat if that accomplishment weren’t overshadowed by the music itself.

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