Track Listing

1. Colder Than The Coldest Winter Was Cold
2. Love Is The New Feel Awful
3. Easy
4. All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey
5. The New Country
6. Holding Me Up
7. Did You Make A Song With Otis
8. Everyone Is Totally Insane
9. Smoke It!
10. Down Like Disco
11. There Is Only This Time
12. A Loan Tonight

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66486 in Music
• Released on: 2005-09-12
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Get beyond the ridiculous name and doubly ridiculous concept--in brief: the Dandy Warhols invented rock’n’roll sometime not long after World War One--and Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars finds these Portland stoners on trippy good form. Gone is the arch social satire that drove numbers like "Bohemian Like You", but agreeably present and correct is the lust-for-life edge that powered the shoegaze-tinged popscapes of early Dandys albums like 1995’s Dandys Rule OK?

The epically-stoned "Love Is The New Feel Awful" sets the tone, Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s breathy vocals sprawling luxuriantly across the song’s first six minutes, before everything gradually disintegrates in a bad trip of caterwauling free-jazz trumpets; meanwhile, "Smoke It" – a rambunctious, party-time hymn to hedonism – further enhances the narcotically-enhanced mood. Arguably, the album’s highlight comes with "All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey" – a Stonesy, number that builds from minimal beginnings into a horn-laden anthem beamed in from some seedy ‘60s pool-hall. Over a decade in the game and the Dandy Warhols still sound like they’re having a ball: either it’s something they put in the water in Portland, Oregon, or the drugs are still most definitely working – Louis Pattison

From the Label
Named (at least in part) after the band’s recording studio in Portland, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars is the new album from The Dandy Warhols. Having formed in 1994, this is the Dandys’ fifth album and the first release since 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House.
Odditorium… is an expansive rock ‘n’ roll album which could only come from the minds’ of the Dandys, and sees the band adding new flavours to their trademark mix of seamless rock hooks, turned-on drone, deep psychedelia and a big shot of the country blues. The first single "Smoke It" is a notable return to form as the band revisit and update the classic sound of their biggest album Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia.

CD Description
Fifth studio album from Oregon-born indie rockers the DandyWarhols. This is the follow-up to 2003's 'Welcome To The Monkey House' and sees the band develop their alternative rocksound. Produced by Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Gregg Williams, the album was recorded in their hometown of Portland. Thesingle 'Smoke It' is included.

Customer Reviews

very very good, and very very frustrating
being a big fan of the dandy's ive been eagerly anticipating their new album. upon purchasing the album, the first track, a funny, little voice intro to the song, declares this album as 'a piece of history'

litening to the start of love is the new feel awful (track2) you'd be inclined to agree. gone is the 80's stlye synth, and a return to the more dandy like guitar of 'dandy's rule OK?' and '13 tales from, urban bohemia.' the first three minutes or so pass in sheer pleasure, at the great guitar riff, and they eerie lyircs of courney taylor taylors voice. however, after about 4 or five minutes, the song just become a blur, fading out slowly, with no clear direction, and loosing all the brilliant momentum it had built up in the first few minutes, and as it finally reaches the end (9 and a half minutes in) your pretty damn gald its over.
this frustrating lack of direction continues with track 3 , 'easy' which takes a full 4minutes and 50 seconds to get going, when it does though its worth the wait, being another great guitar song.

this trend continues throughout the album, with great songs such as smoke it, all the money or simple life honey, down like disco being brilliant, but lacking focus.

this could of been an absolutly brilliant brilliant album, yet due to this apparant desire to waste time on the album its spoiled, and the end result isnt what it should be.

this album is lacking the brilliance of songs like 'bohemian like you' and 'we used to be friends' which is even more frustrating as almost every song on the album could be easily that good if they were just shortened, and made more precise, which was so good about the afore mentioned songs, they cut straight to the chase.

in conclusion, this is still a very enjoyable album, and very good to listen too, however it could of been just perfect. this album has no clear standout tracks, so one feels there arnt going to be many succesful singles coming from it unfortunatly. However, if your in the mood for a bit of calm, quirky alt-rock to have as background music, or just to chill out too, there isnt really a better album. just dont expect any true thunderbolts.

all over the place
In which the Dandy's decide to ditch the gloss of Monkey House, the tunes of Urban Bohemia and return to the inconsistancies that made their first two albums so annoying. Some editing would not have gone astray here as the album lasts for over an hour yet easily could have been cut to 45 minutes. Love is the New feel Awful is a prime example where the track chugs along nicely for the first four minutes only then to dissolve into a further five minutes of cacophony. Even the poppier songs here sound rough and ready. On A Simple Life Honey Courtney Taylor-Taylor sounds like he's been up all night partying. A New Country sounds like it was recorded in one take in someone's living room while a party was going on and after a couple of minutes they call it quits. They redeem themselves on three songs towards the end of the album where Down Like Disco, Everyone is Totally Insane and the single Smoke it manage to crystallise everything we love about the Dandy's where they hold it together long enough to write a decent tune that lasts for four minutes. However even here everything but the kitchen sink is thrown into the production including their beloved horns. Capitol Records have clearly given the Dandy's a free rein to release what ever they want but must be wondering where the next hit single is coming from or whether anyone will actually buy it (not that the Dandy's actually care).

Imperfect, but brilliant
The Dandy Warhols could not, so the rumours say, decide between 'Odditorium' and 'Warlords of Mars' as the title of their fifth official studio album - sixth if you include the self-published 'Black Album' which is only on sale through the band's website - so they decided not to decide, and fuse both titles together. It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but does reflect the fabulous, cocky individuality of this ever-evolving foursome.

To say that the band have 'returned' to their guitar strumming roots, following the experimental 80s flashback of 'Welcome to the Monkey House', would not be a completely accurate statement. There is a rough-edged feel to the recording, reminiscent of their early work, juxtaposed to some slick production effects more typical of recent albums. What it probably IS true to say, is that the powerful musicianship and considered optimism of Odditorium ... demonstrates a strident return to top form for the Portland quartet. Some of the more introspective strumming from previous work is present, and notable is the livelier feel of most songs when compared to Welcome to the Monkey House's whispering ambience. Psychedelic musings melt into and out of full-blown rock outs, complemented by a sleek, grooving underbelly to the album.

Odditorium executes superbly the full array of the Dandy Warhols' musical influences, from the four-to-the-floor 'Down Like Disco' to more off-beat numbers like 'Smoke It' and 'Love is the new Feel Awful', plus a little kick of country blues has returned as well, in the form of toe-tapping hoe down, 'The New Country'. Listening to 'Easy' and 'All the Money or the Simple Life Honey' you just know they are going to be excellent songs to hear live; knowing the band they could quite easily spin out either to twice the length that they are here and really go to town.

A few things could have been altered to work to the Warhols' advantage or to make room for more tracks; for example the 5 minute navel gazing freestyle instrumental on the otherwise excellent 'Love Is The New Feel Awful' could be dropped without the song losing anything of its substance, and the now trademark marathon close-out track is, for once, intractable and a touch dreary. One also feels that the band occasionally try to do too much at once, and just as you think there's a solid theme emerging, the next song heads off in a totally different direction.

Nevertheless this is a fine record; one that Courtney Taylor-Taylor obviously felt that the band were ready to make after dalliances with different styles and a few sideline projects, and crammed full of wonderful guitar hooks, singalong vocals, catchy bass lines and thumping drums. It's a marvellous, varying ride of smooth and uneven sounds, all of which are blended into a tremendous, memorable whole.