My Anodyne

Under the flood of today’s emerging musical acts, finding the cool composure of a talented lyricist mixed with the classy song-writing of a skilled musician can prove to be a difficult task. My Anodyne with “The Inside EP” (2007) serves this exact blend. Chris Rozwod (Malinger, ex-Archer Avenue) returns to the scene with an album whose lyrics can both capture and haunt, and song-writing that can drag the listener up unforgettable crescendos and drop them into epic chasms.

My Anodyne begins “The Inside EP” with the evocative voice of a man pondering whether he has been “holding on too tight” to what has long been “in [his] sight.” In a voice that sends shivers down the spine, he expresses the difficulty of letting go when “we all have demons that make us much too afraid.” Just as the melody settles the listener into a deep haunt, the music explodes into the chorus where Rozwod truly dazzles and captures the beholder. Before long, the intensity is too much. The background guitar enters to unwind the chorus, saving the listener from the beautifully delivered lines, “What’s left to lose? I haven’t been alive for some time and I don’t really care to try.” As the melody of the guitar undertakes the bold task of bringing the song back to a peaceful end, it is already obvious that the remainder of the EP will be an unforgettable adventure.

In the past, Rozwod’s music (The Rise and Fall, The Malinger EP) has incited themes of patience and waiting, but according to the new EP’s “Over It,” Rozwod has moved on to newer ideas. He simply states: “I’ll never wait again, I’m over it.” With renewed focus, My Anodyne “deals with the uncertainty of the future, with what lies ahead and whether it will be a bright day.” For Rozwod, writing his first solo album has proven to be much more personal. “A lot of it was just me trying to figure out what I believe is right and wrong, thinking about the future.” Resolved to embrace the uncertainty ahead, My Anodyne is an up-and-coming artist that will most certainly have a bright future. Be sure to check out “The Inside EP” and catch a concert on one of the Summer 2007 tours.

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—The Cornell Review - The Cornell Review

Ooh, aah, ooh, and so it goes... At first glance My Anodyne (Chris Rozwod) appears to be just another alterna-kid. You know the kind: hip acoustic guitar, a lot of ooh's and aah's, chicly beat-up Chuck Taylor's adorning his feet. The definition of an angst-centered self. Your basic tight-teed, bellyache-voiced kid just trying to "express himself". Even his band name takes on that particular brand of pretension ("anodyne" means a medicine that relieves pain), a sense of exaggerated importance given to self-expression for self-expression's sake. So that's the first glance. If one digs deeper, though, say listening to an entire song (they do last longer than 18 seconds), you'll find more nuance, along with some provocative, refreshing lyrics and compositions.


His music is early millennial emo and recent Plain White T's, a blend my good friend Joey likes to call "nice guy emo." Not angry or electric enough to be considered hard core, though not sappy enough either to become a succession of whiney lovesick ballads, Rozwod treads a middle ground, right down to the nasally, faux-British tinge to his voice (a favorite among punk's various descendants worldwide) that situates him in time, space and genre without falling overboard into self-mockery. While he does occasionally go straight-ahead, treading a path too-often taken (emo), there's enough hope to amount to nothing more than a single tear being shed. Sure, the lyrics from "Meant to Lose" ("This is where you give up / This is where you lose control / It's clear that you meant to lose"), represent a strength-through-adversity pose that's just as showy as sorrow to the point of suicide, but at least it's a different spectacle. Thank God, too, the whole wrist-slitting scene was becoming such a bore.


Of course, we wouldn't be having this discussion if Rozwod weren't a talented artist. His latest EP, The Inside, demonstrates that talent in five tracks of breathy, sprightly sad pop. "Meant to Lose" contains a killer hook and "Eyes Ahead" is a fairly well written treatise on giving up. The song "Showers" dabbles in electronica, Rozwod's voice fazing out in the last measure in that sort of up/down, robotic, hard-to-notate style so popular in the mid-1990s.


If you're looking for a little musical medicine to help heal a couple of sad pop inflicted wounds — and really, who isn't — a few teaspoons of My Anodyne might be enough to cure what slits you. - The Inlander