Kusanagi´s third release since the Liverpudlian band’s inception in 2011 is an invigorating display of Post-Rock music at its best.
Fourteen years after Kusanagi was formed, the band is releasing an engaging and energetic album where the band’s joy in composing and performing their music resonates with the listener’s heart and stimulates the brain’s synapses, as Post-Rock should.
There is surging heaviness, glissading translucent guitars, delicate sections with clear string-picking, energetic drumming, and a bass that lays both soft and hard foundations for the guitars to swirl above. The band has built the eight tracks around the concept of paramnesia, the condition in which we remember things wrongly or confuse what is real and what is imaginary. Post-Rock gives the musicians the tools for laying out the concept of the album, and Kusanagi´s music is both dreamy and stirring, showing sometimes a hint of confused daze.
Thus, the opening song “Night Symmetry” commences delicately with the instruments rising toward a hard hit on the floor drum. Translucent guitars begin to riff, and the rhythm section lays a low-end foundation. Then the latter changes the pace to an undulating fast pace rocking forward as the guitars begin a playful game of swirling high and low, dancing around each other, while the bass holds a melody at the bottom.
The album continues with “Polymorph” that takes its cue from the swirling end of the previous song with fast whirling guitars upon hammering drums and an elongated bass before it melts into a glissando of fast-paced tones tightening and racing forward. The composition changes between drifting parts and engaging paces with guitars spreading out. Toward the end, everything swells to a dazzling crescendo pushed by drums, bass, and cymbals until disorderly guitars put an end to the song.
There is never a dull moment on this 50-minute album as the music flows and contrasts, heaves and sinks. On “In Sleep We Heal”, when the high-pitched guitars soar around a heavy rhythm section, the music changes path and the guitars harmonize in high pitches and with contrasting modes above the low-end bass and rhythms from the drums and cymbals. The guitars perform engaging solos, like improvising around a theme from the bass, before the music changes course to let some air in until it melts together again, driven by a strong rhythm section below the translucent guitars.
“Equilibria” also has its contrasts as bright guitars open the track and dive into a riff-based distorted soundscape. When the music pans out with sounds from a crystal clear guitar, the pace is relaxed with a melodic bassline as the playful higher pitched clean guitars soar above an ever-tighter racing rhythm section. At the end, the music simmers down, turning delicately with a soft approach on the strings before the low-end drums and bass begin to push for speed, and the distorted six-strings begin to follow, initiating a crescendo, cut by fast, glassy guitars ending the track.
“Spacial Awareness” has an opening with a clean guitar spreading glassy droplets, and the track develops into some pulsating music, charging forward with pellucid energy until a pause with only some string-picking and the bass answering each other. Then the music begins to build again, increasing the flow, spreading out above everything but led by the low-end bass. The lead guitars swirl with dominant riffs, delivered alongside immersive cymbals.
“Luminosity” opens with eerie and strange sonics, as if waiting to let the light in. And it surely breaks through with a tremolo guitar, crystalline, uplifting bass, and a swirling snare. The whole track is sprinkled with cymbals, and the bass diving deep while the droplets of clear sounds are dripping from the guitars. The rhythm section takes control before a swell of distorted translucent guitar melodies opens a crescendo, cascading forward with bright spots floating upon the cascading sounds.
The band sweeps through “Physics of Colour” after engaging drums have opened the track. There is a sense of fuzz in the elongated, bright riffs. We hear quiet parts with some rumbling bass creating soft foundations and cymbals drizzling sounds, while the music is morphing into heavy sonics where a brighter guitar fights for attention until it shifts into distorted chugging. And open parts where the glassy guitars also fight the owerful rhythm section.
The album closer “Dream Projector” is yet another showcase of enthralling Post-Rock. Clean, strumming guitarlines meet an acoustic one and they’re soon joined by the bass and drums that lay the foundation for the guitars to pour swirling, wonderful, and relaxed chords upon. It is all laid back and a contrast with the heaviness of the previous track until it morphs into soaring music resembling a crescendo as it surges and flows forward into heavier sonics adorned by elegant cymbals. The soaring music simmers down with strumming guitars, bright sounds before it once more fuses into heavier engaging sonics, finding its way to surge into another swell with fuzzy tremolo guitar floating along. The music begins to twist and turn and swells with a high-pitched guitar that ascends into the wavey sonics that morph into a dense and distorted murky realm toward the end.
