Majutsu No Niwa is not a band that strives to be understated. The last release that I heard was the two part Volume V, capturing the classic rock excess in both presentation and sound, but in the most tasteful of ways. Their newest album is not only a disc of new material, but accompanied by a full length DVD collection of performances captured in 2014. Both capture the band’s peerless approach to space and psychedelic rock, with more than a bit of abstract improvisation to keep things unexpected.
On the audio portion, the quintet embrace that big, bombastic rock sound, tinged with just the right amount of psychedelia, that characterized the strongest moments of their previous albums.A song such as the opening "Tokyo Zero Fighter" pairs the extremely taut rhythm section of Louis Inage and Shigeki Morohashi with the looser, occasionally unhinged guitars of Taiga Yamazaki, Wataru Kawai, and vocalist Rinji Fukuoka.The contrast of the tight rhythms with the noisy, raw guitar soloing is a brilliant one.
"Memories of Fire" also focuses on the rhythms, and even featuring the band work in a tiny bit of near country twang.The band takes their time during the song's almost 10 minute duration, with the guitar soloing slowly becoming looser and more disjointed as it moves along.Both "Monju" and "Melting Maitreya" has them at their most pop oriented.Less vintage sounding guitar solos and more emphasis on the drums and bass ends up defining two extremely catchy and memorable songs.Perhaps most telling moment is the cover of the Stooges' "Search and Destroy."It does not go in any unexpected odd directions and remains a faithful, appropriately overdriven and dense performance, and showcases one of their most obvious influences.
While some of their previous material has deviated from the big guitar sound into more folk tinged territories, the two biggest deviations on The Night Before are instead more dissonant, experimental, and brilliant.The first moment is the short, guitar drone heavy "Tropics, Ionized Jungle, Peeping Auroras".At roughly the midpoint of the album, it is a brief, but foreshadowing interlude of psychedelic guitar noise in drumless, vocalless space.
The album's closing title song is the most out there moment though.At almost 21 minutes, the band embraces their penchant for free improvisation.Structured guitar and bass is mixed with shards of guitar noise, slowly being built up into a complex array of sound.Hushed vocals and pounding drums are slowly blended in.I expected the piece to eventually come together into a tighter, conventional rock arrangement but it never does.Instead Majutsu No Niwa choose to keep things loose and dissonant to its conclusion.
The DVD is 67 minutes, culled from three performances and a total of seven songs.Drawing from all different eras of their discography, the visual and audio quality is impressive.As a whole package, The Night Before is exceptionally well executed.The audio material is consistently strong with their previous work, and I especially was happy to hear that the sound they embraced was the one I have always enjoyed from them, being loud, boisterous rock.Both the album and the accompanying DVD are energetic performances that capture the Majutsu No Niwa sound and style brilliantly.
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