Yakuza
Way Of The Dead

The Yakuza show the way to death to all of metal. With a bit of courage, sure—but not too much—and with a marked dosage of violence. They accompany it arm in arm to the revolving door, as if it were the favorite grandfather, the one with the tips, the chocolate, and the chats. Then, at the exit, they throw it out with blows to the rear. A punch and a caress. Then a punch, another punch, a third punch. A caress. And a new flurry of punches.

We find ourselves, mutatis mutandis, in front of an object that challenges any imaginary you currently have in mind. A situation where, with arbitrariness in hand and quick eye, we could comfortably compile an encyclopedia of the demolition of the average metalhead, practically the type of user who would find themselves most embarrassed and/or in difficulty (I lean more towards the connective) in front of this sound. Criticizing any type of initiative of this kind, which now also sprouts from shitgaze sites, allow me a side note that would somehow summarize the essence of the review. Why, in times of crisis, continue to rely on the hands of those who have generated the disaster? Why cite, listen to, resurrect albums old by years and even more obsolete for ideas, inventiveness, smoothness, anachronistic mummies without connection to the after? Why still consider reliable the characters who buy riffs at the supermarket and, without artisanal care, let them flow one over the other in a chilling cut'n'paste for result and ambition? Why complain about the breakdown when the solution is conveniently at hand? Restarting from the small manufacturing, as in the economy, is a good and right thing: starting again, in short, from here.

In truth, the economic budget of the Yakuza should not have been so limited in 2002. Reviewing now, with the wisdom of 2009, their entire discography, I am convinced that, besides an inevitable stylistic and personal growth, the group led by Bruce Lamont had in itself, from the beginning, a ruthless managerial cunning. It was "Amount To Nothing," a self-produced debut from a year earlier, that caught the attention of Century Media, a label specialized in the genre: convinced they had found a golden goose, thanks to the dry, violent, embryonic, naive and somewhat rough metalcore that clamps down most of the album, the label offers contracts, studios, and money—a detail not indifferent—to encourage the quartet to continue on that path. The response is called "Way Of The Dead," the band's biggest and riskiest gamble, the most conspicuous commercial error the music managers could make: result, Yakuza on one side, Century on the other, every bond released (from now on they will only record for the smaller, interesting Prosthetic-Red).

Although detrimental for a secure multi-year maintenance, the challenge launched to the power is a challenge with few equals, a one-way slap, a plunge into the depths of experimentation, sure to return, alive, more complete than ever. I won't be blasphemous in saying that this work is a decisive breakpoint for the survival and the very sense of metal, a work that all detractors should try, at least once—even if, shortly, they will become two, three, four, ad libitum—a banner exemplary of the disruptive force of contamination and its beneficial effects. Let's clear the field of misunderstandings, just to create an even bigger one: from here on, Yakuza will play jazz-metal. The aforementioned Lamont, besides effectively doubling the role of clean and scream vocals, alternation deeply marked by years of hardcore, is indeed a fine fusion-influenced saxophonist, an aspect that enormously expands the horizons of the eight tracks present here. But do not think of pieces like riff-sax-riff-solo-scream-sax, stuff of acute gerontophilia: the musicians' competence reaches peaks where the same guitars, destructive and abrasive like lava flows, often transform into palettes from which to draw new and exciting shades and details each time.

The first detail that strikes, once the headphones are inserted, is the absolute clarity of the sound, a near-omnipresent accuracy in the productions of the genre, which here, however, enhances not the individual but the whole, not the individuality but the collective meaning, and allows to highlight with great effectiveness the brilliance of the constructs. Ideas, no need to argue, rain down in torrential amounts in every single song, an endless herd that would allow anyone to live for at least a few decades. The group's greatest influence, as the cover also notes—"Amount To Nothing" was quite explicit about it—comes from the suggestions of the Far East, its oblique and precarious sounds, translated into a western context, and fully transferred into the spectrum of the lyrics, often introspective, philosophical, or metaphorical. Yet, it might also be a sin, there's nothing to do: it's the music that catalyzes, hypnotizes, magnetizes, both in the tribal and wild start of "Vergasso"—initiation for all?—and in the instrumental "Signal 2.42"—I smell Toby Driver...—or in the shamelessly rubbed electricity at shamanic rhythm of the divine (nirvanic?) "Chicago Typewriter", an indefinable fusion-core full of time changes, as in a perpetual samsara (try to guess what the sequel of this work will be called?).

But in "Way Of The Dead," thanks to Buddha, there's something for everyone. The appetite of the rougher and more materialistic will be amply satisfied (perhaps there will even be some left over) with the terrifying death-grind blasts of "T.M.S.", the dystonic madness that runs, driven by gusts of uneven blasts, on the edge of three-and-a-half minutes. The already more refined will not pray further to make their own the almost four of "Miami Device", opening and closing like the most electric—and dizzying—Sun Ra to converge into a stormy thrash, where the riffs are thunder folding the song/form in two (there's no old school that holds). Let's take "Vergasso" back in hand to explore the central section, doom in extremely acidic offbeat with fantastic vocal schizophrenies and rich with psychedelic, alienating reverbs, as if there was a need—perhaps there is—to set the catharsis to music. You will hear nothing like it anywhere else: it even becomes difficult to try to reconstruct a map of the inspirations, such and so vast is the cohesion. There may be echoes of Naked City in the tail of "Obscurity", absolutely free and schizoid steamroller, with a sax that squeaks, moans, shrieks, and contorts in diabolical plungers, to the delight of our ears. "Yama" highlights the technical and inventive capabilities of the excellent guitarist Matt McClelland, before the long final exodus, the entirely instrumental "01000011110011": over forty-three minutes (!) of vaguely hard, vaguely swinging, vaguely astral and solipsistic jazz rock, which distorts Black Sabbath to such an extent as to make them Weather Report in conversation with Miles Davis.

After this pearl, two total, huge, sensational confirmations will arrive such as "Samsara" (... precisely) from 2006 and "Transmutations", just a year later: nothing more than exciting opportunities to increase the incredible beauty and autonomy of this hybrid with acoustic brushstrokes, noise digressions, and world music, all firmly held in hand as if it were a single breath. You can call it whatever you want, I just see it as music of the future.