before in one of his other bands such as The Ghost Conspiracy or Alfa Obscura, or perhaps may have noticed his bass playing skills on The Agent That Shaped the Desert, last year’s critically acclaimed third album from rock weirdos Virus. 2012 sees him returning to avant-garde act Yurei for another swan dive into the depths of far-out eccentricity. ‘Insomniac Bug Hunt’ refrains from hurling you into the deep end immediately, preferring to induce frowns with its noodling elevator music-esque jauntiness acting as a buffer to the more chaotic and up-tempo ‘Reborn In Reveries’ which uses repetition in an attempt to confuse and disorientate the listener. Bjeima’s pronounced vocals are pitched reasonably high in the mix, but have trouble gaining a foothold on account of the lawless nature of the music flowing to-and-fro underneath with little regard for convention. ‘3am Revolt’ never quite bursts into the frenzy it threatens to, yet maintains its unsettling atmosphere of bug-eyed insomnia, akin to the jazzy interludes on Calculating Infinity by The Dillinger Escape Plan. The gently flowing refrains and thin spacy keyboards of ‘The Cognitive Crack’ offer a more conventional vibe despite the disturbing imagery of the lyrics, a horror made all the more real by the legibility of the vocals while the unsettling skittishness of ‘Diminished Disciple’ cranks up the menace in a Blue Velvet style representation of unpleasantness beneath the white picket fences. It’s about this time that you realise that you’re digesting a record with an ice-cold black metal mindset, but one too cunning to adhere to convention in its desire to claim your soul. However, ‘Dali By Night’ throws in a blinkand-you’ll-miss-it blast section just to fuck with your head even more. ‘Ditt Monument’ glides by on waves of sedate chilliness before Bjeima appears to lose it completely on the giddy surrealism of ‘Machinery’ where “everything goes backwards and electricity speaks.” We are left with the macabre spoken word and eerie atmospherics of album closer ‘Cranial Echoes’ and the feeling that something very odd has just occurred. Best described as Mr Bungle being covered by Arcturus in a lounge bar somewhere in hell, Yurei are difficult to categorise and hard to digest initially, but are worth sticking with, if only to hear how an album without distortion can be just as disturbing as anything put out by your common or garden corpse painted outfit. There’s method in the madness, somewhere down there. James Conway
Yakuza - Beyul (Profound Lore Records)
Chicago’s Yakuza are something of an acquired taste, having trodden a path of decidedly avant-garde and experimental composition over the years. Blending stoner riffs, jazz fills, prog meanderings and all manner of influences from John Coltrane to Black Sabbath to Pink Floyd they are rather a unique proposition and not an easy listen by any means. My difficulty with this album is that each track feels a little too much like two or three different pieces awkwardly welded together like sections of crash-damaged vehicles. The bits being used are fine in themselves, but the joins are obvious and they don’t work well as a unit. As much as I keep hearing wonder in
these songs, something just doesn’t fit quite right. The musicianship is as flawless as ever and there are moments of utter genius on that will have prog fans salivating and grooves that any headbanger will adore, but ultimately it feels like it’s trying a little too hard. 'Fire Temple And Beyond' is Mastodon-esque and hugely impressive, but could have been twice as good and had way more impact if it was trimmed down from ten minutes to six. The bombast of 'Mouth Of The Lion' and the trippy expanse of 'Lotus Array' are real highlights and work much better in terms of structure and momentum. Had the whole album possessed this kind of cohesion then this would certainly be a 5/5 review. This is not a bad piece of work by any stretch of the imagination, but for a band as talented as this it feels a bit thrown together and ramshackle at times, which is a shame considering their pedigree. The sheer power of their early work like Transmutations or their stunning debut on Profound Lore Of Seismic Consequence show what they are really capable of and sadly they haven’t captured that shimmering brilliance here. Die-hard fans will still enjoy it but for me it just doesn’t quite reach the heady heights this bunch of noiseniks are so clearly capable of. Dewie
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