Yakuza – Sutra

2023-05-15 07:00:23

(c) Sonya Siedlaczek

there were Yakuza no, you would have to invent them first. The long musical dry spell of more than ten years since their last album felt correspondingly uncomfortable. And then they come back like nothing happened. The quartet’s sound continues to give a wide berth to any pigeonholes – doom, sludge, stoner, post, psych, jazz and prog join in with growing enthusiasm – and instead continues to exemplify palatable, disturbing and fascinating musical chaos. „Sutra“ is a more than welcome comeback in a familiar form.

Songs like “Alice” show with confused bite, hypnotic melodies and wonderfully idiosyncratic sound journey that the Americans have lost absolutely nothing in class. Of course, this brings back memories of Mastodon and Voivod, among others, albeit as idiosyncratic as ever. There are often only moments between catchy riff landscapes, biting heaviness and intricate insertions, and Yakuza prefer to try everything at the same time. Something similar happens in “Burn Before Reading”, whose psychedelic rock waves repeatedly torpedo the tough, destructive arrangement. A very long instrumental interlude turns the events completely upside down, the end becomes infernal and apocalyptic.

One of the great highlights of this record is waiting at the end: “Never The Less” takes more than seven minutes, chases a saxophone through the meat grinder and first jazzes through the disturbing intro. Massive doom-sludge walls, longing on all vocal levels and the exciting interaction between wind instrument and guitar set off a broken descent in the best sense of the word, from which you just can’t get away – pure madness with a jack of all trades and endless loops. “Capricorn Rising” has also become an exciting epic, with the eternal holding of the handbrake going to the substance. Only the second half makes fire under the butt and radiates pleasant malice.

Unsurprisingly, Yakuza spin the wheel completely and have fun with it. Of course, the harsh, disturbing appearance with the occasional anti-song attitude can strain one’s nerves, but there is method in that. In the next moment, catchy stoner sludge riffs break through the beams that can’t get out of your head. You never quite know where the journey of “Sutra” is going to go. The visionary post-metal approach rarely got under the skin like it does now – good to finally have the US quartet back.

Rating: 8/10

Available from: 05/19/2023
Available via: Svart Records (Membrane)

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Tags: doom metal, jazz metal, post metal, progressive metal, psychedelic rock, review, sludge, stoner sludge, sutra, yakuza

Category: Magazin, Reviews

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