Odlaw Takes Us Track-by-Track On New Album 'Mi(l)d Life Crisis'

Eight-member indie-rock band from Perth, Odlaw, just released their fourth full-length album Mi(l)d Life Crisis today, May 9. The small army of musicians gathers around the songwriting of Mark Neal, who has been working on his craft since 2015.

“Odlaw was me all alone on the last two records,” Neal explains. “Thanks to those records, I found a bunch of people who wanted to be part of it, and we took the songs that were the most enjoyable to play and made a really fun live show. Suddenly, Odlaw grew from one lonely guy into an eight-piece band, and even got to 11 people on stage for a festival last year.” 

Other members have been drawn from some of Perth's thriving outfits - Veronica Zurzolo (Dolce Blue), Lee Napper (Gap Year), Damien Goerke (Sugar Wife), Jamie Gallagher (Pat Chow), Michael Strong (Alyosha), David Jago (Mezzanine), and Skinny O’Leary (sidequest)

From supporting Kisschasy and Sly Withers to performing at festivals like RTRFM’s In The Pines and Blues at Bridgetown, Odlaw has steadily built a reputation for their heartfelt songwriting and alluring performances—qualities that shine through on what is said to be their most concise album yet, Mi(l)d Life Crisis, a journey through the perils of adulthood told with endearing, relatable songs.

Exclusively for The Music, lead singer-songwriter Mark Neal, walks us through Mi(l)d Life Crisis track-by-track.

TRACK-BY-TRACK OF ODLAW’S 'MI(L)D LIFE CRISIS’ BY MARK NEAL

In my mind, there are two sides to this album. Not just the physical A and B sides of the record, but two different parts of Odlaw are captured in this album. It wasn't an intentional thing; it happened by accident. I am grateful for it. 

One side is fun, the joy and laughter of playing music with your friends. Songs that I want people to sing along to on a Saturday night when we’ve had a few drinks and want to feel euphoric. They are a bit humorous, they are tongue-in-cheek, maybe a bit topical, maybe a bit silly, but they are still very real feelings.  

And then the other side is my songwriting evolving. It’s the more intimate moments of myself on display. My practicing catharsis. Love songs. Heartbreak songs. Loss. vulnerability. I’m a big emo, always have been, never going to have a great handle on my feelings.

For me, songwriting is an exercise in dealing with things. It’s rare that these songs ever work in Odlaw. Six months ago, I was running around telling everyone we were “Perth’s best party band,” then we went into the studio and captured some of my hardest, heaviest feelings yet.

These types of songs used to just live on my phone as voice memos, maybe come out for a solo performance. And now, after all this time, somehow they make sense in Odlaw. I guess that's the sign of a band maturing.

The combination of these things has resulted in an album we are really proud of. We recorded most of the album live, all of us in a room together playing at the same time, like we do on stage. Mitch McDonald was a master engineer and producer on this thing and deserves a lot of credit. 

TRACK 1 - DADS LOVE AC/DC

I don’t quite remember how this song started. I think I was trying to capture a memory of my father that feels like a great Australian stereotype. A fraction of a memory that I might not actually have, that might actually be photographs of him when he was young, of a long-gone era when the father figure was an ‘Aussie bloke’, and being a ‘bloke’ wasn’t negative in any way.

I have a lovely memory of playing this song in the rehearsal room in its early stages. Damien had just inserted a variation of the thunderstruck riff into the song using his keyboard. Jago shakes his head in disbelief and says, “Dads love ACDC,” seemingly surprised by the idea of the song or the fact that it was working. Veronica has picked up on any of his hesitation and quietly exclaims, “They really do.” Everyone in the room quietly nodded in agreement before we ran the song again.

TRACK 2 - BACK TO YOUR BED

This was one the first songs we recorded when we were testing if the whole band could play live in the room and sound polished enough. I’d been playing it solo quite a bit around Perth and Freo. Several friends had commented on it being good, and after the last show Jamie (drums) had demanded that it be brought to the band. 

I’m really proud of this song. It's connected really well with people and just might be the best song I've written so far. In some ways, it's just a simple love song, but it feels grand. I know I wrote it after seeing one of my favourite bands, The Mackerels, play. I loved how they could write a punchy rock song using open chords. There's something kind of classic and timeless about big guitar chords, which definitely inspired me in the writing of this track.

TRACK 3 - DEAD ON THE INSIDE

Catharsis. The process of releasing emotions. Are you angry at the world for any number of reasons, my therapy recommendation is writing a song. You can say what you want, you can scream at the top of your lungs. Angry at stupid people? Are you having fantasies about burning down your life and starting again? make sure it's a little catchy. Whatever works really.

I hated this song for a little while. Then I used it as an opportunity to let the other voices in Odlaw shine. Michael is in the chorus; Veronica is in the verse. They’ve always been great additions to harmonies across the many Odlaw songs, but they get a second to shine a little brighter in this song.

They saved this song from the chopping block. For the longest time, I thought we’d end up cutting it, but hearing my words in their mouths fills me with joy. There’s also some great guitar lines, and keyboard bits that made this song a lot of fun.

There are some funny lyrics in this song that perk me up. Random bits of thoughts thrown together, doesn’t it even make sense? Who cares, songs are art. 

The very first verse part, “It’s an open bottle, you can’t bring that in here like this,” refers to working a bar shift while someone tries to bring in their own booze. They tried a compliment to let me allow it. Nah, buddy. It's not happening. 

The second verse is talking about annoying traffic. Everyone slowing down on a freeway to look at a car crash and causing congestion. Or how annoying is commercial radio and the constant ads or over the top voices, fuck thats annoying. Your radio personality is not a real person; you sound like an idiot. How can anyone believe that's a real person? That's why you should listen to community radio like RTRFM with real people being normal and awkward (sometimes) and no shitty adverts.

There’s also a Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club reference in there with the name “Jack”.

TRACK 4 - HEALTH

Out of all the songs on the album, this one is the hardest to listen to. Hopefully not for you, but it is for me. It’s not that I had high expectations or that it didn’t come out the way I thought it would. It’s more the level of vulnerability I put into it. Listening back to it is scary. I usually love playing these songs; they’re cathartic and make me feel better. It did while I was writing it, and it did while we were recording it, but now it’s got a new life somehow. And it’s fully here to haunt me. 

When I was writing it, I thought it would be the album's closer. It reminds me of The Ballad by Millencolin. That’s a beautiful song that closes out an album (Pennybridge Pioneers) I adored as a teen.  

TRACK 5 - LIBBY

Sometimes I accept the challenge of songwriting set by another person. A dear friend and neighbour, Libby, asked me to write her a song. Asked a lot, actually. I did it as a gift, and then ended up really liking the song. I guess when the subject is great, the song comes out great. This is one of those pure joy songs, a song about a good friend, made with love and fun and at the core of it. The band added their parts, and it came to life with ease.

TRACK 6 - CAR DOOR

This track opens side B when you are listening on vinyl. I think it’s the perfect centrepiece to the record.

It’s easy to overthink things. But sometimes it's the simple parts that are the most effective. This is a love song that feels like a heartbreak song. This kinda songwriting comes easily to me. Chords and emotion. The complexities of love. Why does love also come with a level of fear and anxiety? There’s this depth to a relationship you’ve been in for a long time.

Sometimes they’re near but feel far away, sometimes they’re late coming home from work, and a minute feels like an eternity. Sometimes you feel crippled by their presence, like too much joy and emotion stops you being able to breathe properly, you wanna say how you feel but words have stopped working. Sometimes a whole day passes, and you haven’t even talked to each other in full sentences. Love is beautiful and weird. I like trying to capture the best and the worst of it in a song. 

TRACK 7 - GETTING OLDER GOT FUN

We got really country on this one. There’s a bunch of parts in the recording I don't even remember doing. Actually, did Mitch chuck some extra vocals over the top? Haha! 

This is a fun song; we had fun with it. Some of the backing vocals and guitar parts are wonderful. The band is cooking on this one. I wrote a ton of verses. Maybe one day we will play a version of this song with all the verses, and it’ll go for 15 minutes.  

 TRACK 8 - FRIENDS LOSE FRIENDS

So one dreamy spring evening I was sitting in Jamie's (drums) courtyard with our good friend Steve and after several beers the conversations had steered to losing people. Jamie told a moving story about someone we knew from the Perth scene, and how they acted after Jamie had to break some heavy news. Steve lamented about a friend he used to play music with. It was a beautiful moment. We were all sharing and healing together, and I left feeling inspired by the beauty of that moment. 

A few days later, I picked up my guitar, and this poured out of me. Steve and Jamie both got the lyrics tattooed on them and surprised me one day. Being able to capture those moments with a song feels like my main reason to live. I love my friends; they give me purpose.

TRACK 9 - LEAVE THE LIGHT ON

If the lyrics aren’t clear. We used to have a terrible car. The aircon didn't work, the stereo didn’t work, and in the high heat of summer, we drove down to Mandurah for Christmas. On the drive, I was questioning everything. Religion, love, family, economy, pride, my choices, my failings, my health, this country, my future.

I was sweating into my fancy Xmas clothes, having a proper breakdown, and I looked across at my love and realised we were both going through the same thing. I played this song solo for a long time, and I never thought it would work with the band, but they made it whole as always.

TRACK 10 - LET IT OUT

Mitch and I recorded this one back at his place. The only one that was recorded separately. I’d been playing it live in my acoustic shows, and I really wanted to get Damien’s voice and keyboard on it. We had run out of time to really practice and record it with the other tracks, so I took it to Mitch to see if we could piece it together and still make it feel like it was part of the live sessions.

I had some shitty family news that week, hadn’t been sleeping much, and I was not in the mood to experiment too much and I also wanted it to not feel too disconnected from the album which had all been recorded with the full band there. In the end, the easy way to do that was to keep it bare and present it the way the song was written. 

It’s a good closing track. I feel like it sums up my emotions around this era and somehow sets me up for whatever is coming next. Whenever I finish an album, I get motivated to write another one. I was so relieved when we got the mixes back, and these few intimate moments worked. When I listen to it now, I can hear all the shit I was trying to deal with. The depression I was going through, the medication I had to settle, and how all that was doing was blocking me from actually dealing with it. Depression isn’t fun, songwriting is my way of dealing with the shadow, and I'm pretty relieved that I'm able to express that and feel comfortable releasing it into the world. 

Maybe that’s a nice way to close out this whole chapter of words. When an album comes out, I feel grateful and nervous. Scared no one will like it, but so happy that I have another set of recordings which chronicle my life up to now. I’m writing this on the eve of the album’s release, and I’m excited about the possibilities of what comes next. For a bunch of people, it’s going to be new, and it’s going to be fun watching them connect to it, but it’s also the end of that chapter for me, and what comes next is hopeful. 

Mi(l)d Life Crisis is out now. You can listen to the album below.