challenge you to limit The Apes to one of those terse comparisons we critics love to hand out. I’ve been trying to do it for at least a month now, with little success (the best description I’ve come up with so far is “Black Sabbath gone dance-punk”, but for one thing, this is hardly dance-punk). Chances are, the first time you hear Oddeyesee, your reaction will be one of those lovely “the fuck?”s- the type of impression that ensues when a band does something not necessarily experimental, but altogether unexpected.

Many people won’t like this album. I can easily picture that initial reaction leading to an eventual aversion to the oddly menacing organs, the lurching bass, and more than anything else, the strange combination of all the album’s elements. In my case, though, surprise transformed into admiration and exhilaration. If there’s one factor that makes an album great, it’s a band that knows how to rock out with total originality, and this is where The Apes excel.

There are many highlights that provide danceable evidence of this, especially “Aboard the Ark”, which is the most brilliantly executed track on Oddeyesee for its remarkable consolidation of all The Apes’ strengths. The song opens with gorgeous organs you’ll grow to love (or hate) after a few listens, which stunningly wrap around the vocals until the chorus enters. At this point, chugging guitars churn out muted chords, and a catchy riff emerges above the nonsensical, yet memorable lyrics (“We lost our instincts when we left the shores/ And we found our heads when we headed out the doors”). Perfectly representative of Oddeyesee and incredibly catchy, “Aboard the Ark” will surely land a spot on my year-end mix for its uniqueness and sheer genius.

Many of the other highlights have a far more sinister sound, using the organs to good effect (on these, you might hear the Black Sabbath comparison, though this is certainly closer to Black Sabbath’s prospective sound in 2003, and not its familiar sound from 30 years ago). “Village of Brainbow and Brainbro” sounds especially threatening, especially with lyrics like “Far, far, far from your cities/ They’re building robot bodies to spread disease” backing up the evil intonations. “I-Magik” is a similarly malicious stomp, and “(Worwiz’s) Modern Problems”, arguably the hardest-rocking track here, sounds both revelatory and foreboding.

“Drop the Bomb!!,” the closer and one of the album’s defining moments, has a lighter tone, placing the line “There is no return/ Never be a return to this place” over disturbingly shiny organs. As far as I gather, the music is a reflection of the world coming to terms with its imminent demise on this track before the bomb is dropped. Incidentally, kudos to you if you can figure out the album’s curious, but assuredly wicked concept, because I know little more than “Worwiz got the bomb/ Whatcha gonna do?” - perhaps if some of the vocals were clearer, it’d be easier.

While Oddeyesee flows very well and could not work without any of its songs, there are a few unmemorable tracks, which tend to be the slower, quieter (at times, ambient) ones. “How You Like Me Now?”, which is focused around a drumbeat very reminiscent of that in Ride’s “Dreams Burn Down”, lacks the commanding catchiness of the album’s other songs, since both ingredients in The Apes’ “organs + hooks = brilliance” formula are almost entirely absent. “Worwiz” will almost certainly lose most people, with female vocals responding to a deep voice over a slow march beat and of course, those ominous organs. But if you grow to love this album like I have, you’ll find this song hilariously absurd, and forgive other missteps as well.

We need more albums like Oddeyesee. The Apes embrace the bizarre and the untraditional and while it may fall short of astonishing, there is little that I would change, if only because it captures the band’s intentions so completely and so wonderfully. But this is all blabber. The real point is that this album rocks. And it does so with organs. So take that.