CREDIT: ODONIS ODONIS
Toronto-based band, Odonis Odonis celebrates another milestone in the band’s career – the release of another full-length album called Hard Boiled Soft Boiled.

I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. You know it as well as I do — as the school year draws to a close, it can be a struggle to stay organized in your studies, stay motivated through your exams, or even stay awake from exhaustion.

That's why I'm excited to share news of the latest release by industrial rock outfit Odonis Odonis from Toronto, an album so powerful it will catch and keep your attention throughout.

Due for release April 15 on Buzz Records, Hard Boiled Soft Boiled is the band's second full-length effort — officially following 2011's Hollandaze and their EP Better from last year — though the album has a deeper history with the band than is first apparent.

“It's funny, this record was actually finished closed to five years ago — by Dean,” explained bassist Denholm Whale. “He flew out to the west coast to work with Colin Stewart, and they got all these great session musicians to work on demos that he had kicking around.”

An album of contrasts, Hard Boiled Soft Boiled is a paradox; the first half of the album is fast, its songs clocking in less than three minutes in length. Here the band — Dean Tzenos on guitar, Whale on bass and Jarod Gibson on drums — use their industrial sound as tools like any other, seasoning a certain punk mentality with heavy, trenchant tones — swiftly shuttling the listener through an explosive sequence of material before dropping them into the deep grooves embodied in the second half of the album.

“The original concept was to keep it powerful and quick on one half, and more pop-oriented, more atmospheric and ethereal on the other side,”Whale said, admittedly speaking more from his perspective than that of Tzenos. “It was a pretty huge undertaking a few years ago and we're finally able to release it now, so we thought, why not?”

Leading up to the release, Odonis Odonis previewed some of the album via SoundCloud — a sampler playlist featuring selected tracks from the album and an explosive cover of Johnny Cash's “Ring Of Fire” — and have released focus tracks like “Angus Mountain” and “Order In The Court,” for which they recently released a music video.

According to Whale, the band found themselves at a crossroads around the end of 2012; in the midst of organizational changes surrounding the group, they opted at the time to nurture new material as a three-piece rather than release Hard Boiled Soft Boiled, which had already been shelved for a couple of years, which meant the release of their Better EP first.

A year later, the band felt the timing is much more fortuitous for the release, however not without a few tweaks first.

“We made a decision on adding in ‘New Obsession' together, and Jarod [Gibson] mastered the whole thing,” said Whale. “It was originally recorded and mastered by different people, but we decided to add the song and go for a different angle with mastering. Outside of that, it's pretty much identical to what Dean had recorded years ago.”

In such a way, Whale and Gibson were able to place their fingerprints on the album, though Whale isn't without any personal connection to the record. “I heard this record before I was in the band; I talked to Dean about releasing this record when I was starting up a tape label years ago, and then next thing I know, I end up in the band.”

“It's weird, we're taking something that we originally had no emotional connection with and trying to deconstruct it and set it up for a live scenario,” he continued. “We don't even play similar instruments — Jarod's setup is totally different compared to a real drum kit — so we've had to find a way to deconstruct that whole record and put it back together in a way that works for us live, yet still represents that album.”

For more information on Odonis Odonis, visit them online at odonisodonis.com or follow along on Twitter @odonisodonis. The band will be touring Hard Boiled Soft Boiled for the foreseeable future, however their thoughts are already on a new album to follow while they're still hot from this release — which means don't be surprised to see another powerful album from the trio in 2015... or not.

And for more of the latest music news, album streams and concert previews, follow this column on Twitter @fsu_bobbyisms. Congratulations on another great year here at Fanshawe, have a great summer. I'm out of words.