Indie-Pop Newcomer Odie Leigh’s Debut Album, Carrier Pigeon
For anyone who has ever asked that society normalize delivering handwritten letters, up-and-coming folk artist Odie Leigh brings a hotly anticipated debut album, Carrier Pigeon. Though I’ve had the pleasure of following Leigh for some time, she first gained popularity on TikTok in 2022 with the release of her single Crop Circles. The track is still her most streamed song to this day, and allowed her career to flourish. Nearly three years and two EP projects later, Leigh launches a brilliant debut to the scene with this album. Leigh also notes that, for this newest project, each song is a message for someone once important to her and the album is the means of delivery: “This album is the carrier pigeon and the songs are the messages.”
The lead singles off the album explored a stark yet welcome departure from Leigh’s rich, Americana sound and embracing of a more pop-y, energetic vibe: her “happy-girl era.” Chugging drums, colourful instrumentals, and heavy electric guitar make this a much more sophisticated work for Leigh.
The two opening two tracks, “A Good Thing” and “Already (On My Mind)” certainly succeed in plunging the listener into this new facet of Leigh’s work. A stripped acoustic backing and a drumline reminiscent of a beating heart pushes the first chorus, resolving in a catchy electric guitar riff and refrain: “it's hard for me/to not/romanticize every/man I meet.” The subsequent track sports a bright brass feature to underscore Leigh’s simultaneous worries and excitement in a blossoming relationship.
Leigh’s acute ability to write the rawness of human connection shines on every track, from the initial flame of a crush to expecting inevitable abandonment. In utilizing a new upbeat style, Leigh offers listeners a chance to be something other than self-sabotaging, taking the good bits of life in stride with the bad. While tracks like “Idiom” and “Common Denominator” are something of a return to Leigh’s older, edgier work, the rest of the record invites daydreams of being in an indie movie, embracing the journey and mistakes made along the way before any of it truly matters.
Each track is intensely personal to Leigh, as the concept for the album suggests, but that never stops them from being almost alarmingly relatable as well. A personal favourite of mine for this reason is “Conversation Starter, ” which Leigh describes as a “crazy girl song” for those who “say everything that's on [their] mind at all times [with] no filter” in her TikToks teasing the single. From the opening chords of the verse to the explosion of powerful percussion and heavy guitar that demands to be listened to with car windows rolled down, the track begs the question “do you really want me?” for listeners who “[were] never good at dancing close or flirting high” and may be “bad at starting conversations.”
Beginning to end, Carrier Pigeon is a wonderful listen and the start of an extremely promising future for Odie Leigh. If you’re the type to let everyone know that “you were there before it was cool” (because same), now is the perfect opportunity to feed the superiority complex by listening to this debut album. As a new height for Leigh, I am hugely excited to see “how this one ends” as boasted by closing track “My Name On A T-Shirt”, and you should be too.
9/10