This February marks a comeback from one of those bands that we will surely have to keep an eye on in the next future! Bipolar Architecture presents its sophomore album Metaphysicize, released via one of those music labels that is always synonymous with good quality: Pelagic Records!
If you’re interested to know more about this new chapter of the band based in Germany and Turkey I suggest you be ready to press play when you will finish this reading!
After a very good debut (Depressionland, 2022), Bipolar Architecture is ready to release their new record: Metaphysicize.
The international four-piece band, whose members are strewn across Istanbul and Berlin, showcases a fearless commitment to the elevation of their sound that is not boxed under one genre only, this path is enriched with multiple influences. The record presents a Post-Metal basis with a lot of influences from Shoegaze, Post-Rock, Blackgaze and much more. It is always fascinating to hear how artists blend together different features from different paths and manage to make something that resonates all together.
Metaphysicize is not only the sophomore attempt from the band, but it is also a brutal and passionate work dedicated to Sarp Keski’s late father. A record that is emotionally charged in every track. During the last months three music videos were released (for the title track, “Death Of An Architect” and “Alienated”), every one of them allowing us to take a deep look at the images that Bipolar Architecture wanted to convey through their music.
“Metaphysicize” is the eponymous opening track that sets the tone and the mode of the whole record. It’s raw, it’s brutal, it’s also hopeful but also surrendered at the same time to the cruel reality of loss. The final is very relentless, the sense of urgency to express these feelings is very clear. One of my favourite tracks. Frontman Sarp Keski said about this track “[…] this time we’re taking control of these dark emotions and exploring the idea of them as cosmic signs of our collective inter-being.”
“Disillusioned” starts with a guitar that takes up from the previous track (and I like this kind of musical continuity a lot), and descends into more brutalness. The end is blunt: “there’s nothing to say there’s nothing to do”, a cruel reality that breaks the hearth.
“Death Of The Architect” is the core-moment of this record. In this goodbye-song to his father, Sarp, in the simple but effective lyrics, communicates clearly the sense of loss, of pain and the loneliness caused by this loss. This track is the one that touched me the most, the feelings are so desperate but pure, displaying the cruelness of being a human perfectly.
“Kaygi” is the first and only track sung in Turkish, and has more “relief moments” of Shoegaze/Post-Rock peacefulness compared to the previous tracks. A more intimate moment since the use of Keski’s native language, that anyway doesn’t lose the main compulsive theme of riffs and blasts.
“Alienated”, this one is another one of my favourites. The lyrics, the music, everything is perfectly finished to let the listener fully experience the context. This is one of those tracks that really talked to me while listening to it. The emotions, the concept, “Alienated” is perfect as a stand-alone track and I’m not surprised it was one of the singles released before this record. In the words of Keski: “I wanted to explore the idea that, whoever or wherever we are, every single one of us is at some point completely alone in our own universe.” And I think that this is a very common feeling in these desperate times - it is reassuring to find what we feel in the music we listen to.
In “Immor(t)al” and “Dysphoria” we navigate other themes that are linked to the general concept of this record; the explosive dynamic of the band remains intact in the closure of this record.
Metaphysicize is not a simple record. The emotional baggage here is noteworthy and heavy. Well expressed via the dynamics, the riffs and the restless blasts that follow through every track. The “moments of breathe”, where the Post-Rock/Shoegaze experimentation takes place, are brief moments to take a breath before diving again. It is not really a lyrically complex record, and I liked it this way. It is simple and direct, straight to the point where it hurts the most.
Bipolar Architecture gave their all in every track of this record, and you can hear it clearly and easily.
