Individ is the sound of a band confident and engaged, striking while the amps and mics are hot.
By continuing their journey down the rabbit hole, Individ presents the duo as tireless seekers, men of action who are not tempted by the easy way out.
Altogether, the material is mature, technically proficient as ever, lively, and sounds rough and real; it’s hard to imagine Individ won’t be a hit with fans, intermittent or long-standing.
Individ is, in essence, the product of a group hell-bent on escaping the aches of Carrier without losing sight of what made it beautiful.
Individ is deeply nestled in The Dodos' shadow, gathering patterns of the past to construct their future without shying away from tried and true habits.
Clocking in at almost 40 minutes, the nine tracks on Individ make for an exhilarating, albeit fairly melancholy, listening experience.
Individ maintains that energy and precision throughout its 40 minutes—adhering strictly to the band’s core approach, offsetting a lack of surprise with sheer sturdiness.
While Individ is marked with the frantic momentum of an inspired studio creation, it ultimately suffers under the weight of its boldness and reckless abandon.
Although not as strong as Visiter, Individ comes off as a spiritual partner to their 2008 breakthrough, showing the duo working quite well in comfortable surroundings.
While Individ is a record still tinged with gravitas, it falls short of the peaks and valleys of its predecessors.
The Dodos push through their inner turmoil by means of dizzying tempos and layered guitars, much of which recalls their early sound on Visiter.
Each song's construction contains elements that are uniquely Dodos, but the album feels muddy. Whether it's that the melodies are less adventurous or that no single element rises to the occasion, track after track reveals the album to be a moving wall of sound.
'Individ' by The Dodos warrants its existence purely by virtue of the track, 'Competition' - that one's a beaut! The rest of the album is pretty good I suppose. These guys make the bare-bones drum and guitar combo go further than most, but the majority of the songwriting is a bit indie-vanilla (if vanilla was the most melancholic ice-cream flavour). Nevertheless, this is the first Dodos album I've paid attention to since their debut, so that's a recommendation of sorts. It's certainly a ... read more
Was not expecting to love this as much as I do. Very monolithic, heavy sound, yet still human and delicate. Fantastic.
Precipitation, Bubble, Competition, Goodbyes and Endings, Retriever, Pattern/Shadow