Orange Dog Club – little white house (on a hill)
Orange Dog Club (ODC) comes from humble beginnings – birthed from boredom somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere upstate NY – but they have quickly become one of Buffalo’s most exciting exports. The band is led by the enigmatic Tim Turner, who after emigrating to Buffalo at age 18, has sharpened and honed his songwriting into something wholly sophisticated for someone who’s still young enough to be in college. With his cornfield-bred friends and a few Buffalonians in tow, Turner & co. have crafted an incredible debut, little white house (on a hill), a razor-sharp collection of eight songs that Julian Casablancas probably wishes he wrote, if he went back to singing through a garbage practice amp instead of a fancy vocoder.
“dorm girl” kicks off this album and, immediately, Turner turns on his songwriting charms. This is almost assuredly the most beautiful song ever written about banging in a dorm room – Turner’s distortion-laden vocals and clever turns of phrases are more than enough to make this feel less the drudgery of casual, “empty sex” and a bit more like the post-climax, starry-eyed acceptance that your current lover’s not going to be your spouse after all. Beyond the obvious garage-rock guitar cornerstone, there’s also sunny organs; sparkling splashes of synth; and so, so, so many hooks – Casablancas (and maybe even Albert Hammond Jr.) would be proud. Song two, “it always rains,” feels like a spiritual successor, both lyrically and musically. Maybe Turner is more bummed about dorm girl than he let on – making more than a few metaphors for tears while still exploding into a conversely happy, Weezer-esque power-pop mood.
Across little white house, ODC keeps their central, garage rock thesis largely intact, but strays out into little creative tributaries that keep things fresh and interesting. “i don’t care” makes use of a sultry wah guitar – reminiscent of the 2001 Eve/Gwen Stefani smash “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” – dipping into funky, r&b swagger… And I think this one is horny too, or, at the very least about being naked when you die. “if you want me to i’ll stay” makes strong use of dynamics, bouncing up and down in intensity – finally culminating in a glistening guitar solo, and offset by a follow up throat-shredding scream. “running out of time” and “had it comin” are two more left fielders, foraying into psych-y Tame Impala territory with woozy licks of organ, and on the latter, a surprisingly explosive finish.
Album closer “something to look forward to” is another highlight – a horny affair (the brass this time, not the libido) that feels like a perfect summation of ODC’s garage-y power pop approach. For all the big guitars and catchy riffs, Turner’s a sensitive soul underneath it all:
“I wish I could go back and see
When my Dad was twenty three
Did he feel as bad as me about being alive
When do you realize
Things don’t really change you just grow numb with time
Something about the grind
Wears you down until you die”
Gnarly.
little white house (on a hill) is out now (August 21, 2026). You can find it on bandcamp (embedded below), or, on Spotify or Apple Music. You can find everything else ODC has to offer via this helpful Linktree link, as well.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Nick Sessanna