Review: Odie Leigh is Equal Parts Witty and Earnest on Debut Album ‘Carrier Pigeon’
AN ENDEARING, AND OCCASIONALLY COMICAL, DISSECTION OF 20-SOMETHING WOES — Odie Leigh shares an honest cross-section of her life on her debut folk-pop album, Carrier Pigeon. The record touches on truths that many freshly independent young adults learn — namely, that any place can feel like a small town if you let it, for better or worse, and embarrassment is the biggest joykill.
Raised in a Louisiana church choir, Leigh has always been musical but didn’t set out to make a name for herself as a musician. Instead, she studied filmmaking at Loyola University in New Orleans, fully intending to find her footing in that world. Despite her lifelong love of music, it wasn’t until she won a bet between friends to make a viral TikTok song that a fire was lit within her. With traction still gaining, she began writing music seriously, releasing the How Does It Seem To You EP in 2022, The Only Thing Worse Than A Woman Who Lies Is A Girl Who’ll Tell The Truth in 2023, and subsequently singing with Mom + Pop the same year.
Leigh’s natural talent as a vocalist, paired with her anecdotal lyrical style and straightforward production, lends a feeling of charming familiarity. Particularly on tracks centered around Leigh’s wit and acoustic guitar, such as “Party Trick” and “Finer Things,” it’s easy to imagine her as a close friend showing up to a bonfire with an understated masterpiece that she’s overly humble about.
In an arguably oversaturated era of diaristic singer-songwriter, Leigh brings a charismatic edge that feels relatively untapped by her peers. In her songwriting, there’s a tethered awareness of self that wavers between harmlessly cheeky and overripe with anxiety. While existing in separate sonic universes, a contemporary comparison could be made to an act like Palehound. Both Leigh and Palehound frontperson, El Kempner, sharply explore themselves in the context of what’s around them through candid yet punchy lyrics.
In previous work, Leigh orbited closely around acoustic-driven folk sounds but expanded into a fuller range of instruments on this project. Structurally, the songs on Carrier Pigeon tend to lean into a pattern of beginning with the bones of classic Odie Leigh acoustic guitar and vocals before building into bright, occasionally gritty, full-band productions. In the safety of this song structure, Leigh explores influences from rock and Riot Grrrl to folk while disentangling herself from her insecurities long enough to examine why she’s carrying them.
One of the most striking moments on the project comes on the penultimate track, “Idiom.” The song sounds more similar to her 2023 EP than any other track on the record, but when broken down into its elements, it’s clear Leigh has elevated her sound since then. There's a dark, deep echo hidden behind the strings and vocals.
She opens with the drone of “Toss me out with the water / Toss me out like old friends / I don’t want to bother / I just want to know how this will end.” Exactly halfway through the song the quiver of a clarinet emerges, followed by the build of piano keys, evoking a blankness for Leigh to pensively ruminate on the final verse “’Cause I’m too much like my father / I’m always gone / Always waiting for someone to do me wrong.”
Leigh has proven herself to be capable of writing songs that capture a holistic glimpse into her trials of young adulthood, and it’s exciting to think about ways in which her stories might be sonically fortified with time and collaboration.
