Matsuri - Endship (2010)

I've always loved the counteracting extremes withing screamo. When I first heard Kulara a couple years ago, going from the rapid, thrashy-ness of something like Bridge to the soft acoustic beauty of Episodes was incredible. The beauty of each style work with and against each other into and incredible feeling. Matsuri is no different. In fact, it's evident from the first song. The beginning of a four part piece goes in and out of these two styles, beginning with the serene, adding harsh vocals, then clashing everything together and back. Bittersweet melodies flow and ebb in and out of the foreground and the entire sound just seems so jarring on the surface. Everything is so well-done, though, and as this album continues on, you'll notice how incredibly flush everything sounds. All in its right place, for sure.

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Heart On My Sleeve - Blood Is Not Thicker Than Wine (2011)

Screamo band from Sweden. Vocals are fantastic here. Somewhat reminiscent of Heaven in Her Arms or a number of more black metal bands in this respect. Great atmosphere, to boot.

http://heartonmysleeve.bandcamp.com/album/blood-is-not-thicker-than-wine

Logs-Hogz (2011)

The lastest effort from this band, including Alex Gaziano of Kidcrash, finally makes it out after two years of waiting. I guess I'm a bit late, it was "officially released" on the first, available before then, but now is as good as time as any, right?

First, it isn't really an album that would necessitate two years of prep, which is good. Although the post-hardcore memories signaled through this album are beautiful and thick and all other sorts of adjectives, it's got a general ugliness and simplicity to it, that's necessity for this genre.

Not too much to say... it starts with a charming enough opener, a sample of a kid exclaiming of his need to "scream and cry", followed by several kids doing just that, leading into a couple of crash cymbols and strong enough riff with, of course, some screaming vocals. Throughout the album it works with a bit of a loud-soft dynamic in it's general structure. Despite that, superficially, I can't say too much about it in comparison with the genre at whole, it's not derivative and it's not boring, it's just one of those "genre pieces" that gets a lot right.

I don't think it has an album cover, so there's a sloth... there was one on their self-titled EP. Well, last.fm is using this as the album cover, so I guess maybe this is as good as any.

buy... I'm not sure. The only record label I've seen that "has it" makes no mention on their site.

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Envy - Recitation (2010)

I'd guess that nearly every blog that would be interested in this has it up, but even if I'm late, it's better than not having it at all. Japanese screamo legends Envy release perhaps their best effort to date with Recitiation, again mixing their devastating "doom screamo" with lighter, "post-rock" passages including, what I'm sure are nicely worded, soft-spoken passages, but non-Japanese speakers will have to rely solely on the tone to gain enjoyment.

I suppose we can start with the cover. Seemingly a reflection on the music itself. Sparse yet impactful, dark and bright, the music itself paints the landscape that appears. The upper raises the heavy abrasive music as we fall back to and settle with the lighter songs, maybe some confusion between the two interjecting sparsely.

I'll refrain from going track to track or even a slight play-by-play. For one, the album is far too long for that. Over an hour of this and that doesn't lend itself to a through dissection, especially with one listen. Mostly I'll say that this is certainly recommended for anyone that was a fan of the Heaven in Her Arms album I posted towards the beginning of this blog. Also, even though the two genres mentioned come with a fair amount of stigma, please leave your silly predispositions at the door. While they carry a significant amount of themes from each, Envy comes together as an excitingly different beast, transcending those labels. It's not necessarily screamo, and it's not necessarily post-rock, it's just damn good music.

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Heaven in Her Arms - Paraselene (2010)

Japanese screamo band, Heaven in Her Arms, continues their progression into a devastating mix of screamo, post-rock, and a number of other apparent influences ranging from modern chamber music to doom and black metal, with their latest release, Paraselene. Even though, since their inception, they've had these same depressive themes, screams, and extended melodies, they fully realize their potential for emotional expression with some of the most dense atmospheres of any album in recent memory. Crushing, doom-inspired guitars set over some impressive drum work flow seamlessly into their namesake's (named after a song on Converge's album Jane Doe) influence of hardcore riffs with variated melodies and, again, some incredibly impressive drumming. All-in-all, even after a couple albums that were so obviously leading up to something like this, I'm still shocked. Those doomy melodies, set with repetive melodies within and above, sliding into the band's "post-hardcore" sound seems like a near-culmination for what the band has been accomplishing for so long.

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