Change of direction
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| Soccer. - "Seasons move forward" Label: ungulates |
When looking for quality Emo-music, the Western hemisphere should not forget about Japan. I probably did it for too long, but ever since discovering ungulates Records from Tokyo, I keep myself updated. I'm definitely scratching on the surface, but thankfully the band called SOCCER. is working with them. I basically discovered them with the more famous KUDARANAI1NICHI, as SOCCER.'s singer/guitarist Taiyo plays in both bands.
Now their debut album "Seasons move forward" is out via ungulates and to get it straight out the way: It's one of my favorite records of the year so far. It's quite a surprising, unexpected effort though, if you knew SOCCER.'s music before. They wrote and recorded four songs prior, two for their debut single/EP "I'm looking to change my Future" and two for the Split with SONIC GRANDMOTHER. On those tracks they obviously paid homage to AMERICAN FOOTBALL's kind of Emo, so you can imagine their direction, without listening to any of their early releases. With "Seasons move forward" they turn everything upside down, anyway. Well, "everything" may be overstated on my part, but let's put it this way: They show that there's a lot more to them...
"What could I do right, what could I do...? I'm afraid of hurting myself", repeats Taiyo over and over, in the magnificent opener to the album. It's called "Hurting" and I'll save any superlatives, cause they probably couldn't do this track any justice. From the gentle guitar picking, to the carefully spoken words, to the MINERAL memoriam melodies, to the overall beautiful instrumentation and build-up, this is the beauty of Emo summed up in roughly four minutes of playtime. Surprisingly though, they add some screaming in the last third and more surprisingly, it works very well. What a track! Normally it could only go down from there, but SOCCER. hang on with "Winter #21", and more of the new found grittiness. The Post-Hardcore-hooks, the slightly noisy guitars, the subtle screaming, the rhythmic nature... they keep it coming! Without getting too heavy or too technical, they suddenly have more in common with bands like NATIVE or DAITRO then AMERICAN FOOTBALL. With "IV" they go downright Screamo, shouting out loudly "I killed myself in dreams!", while wreckin' it up for good in 58 seconds. Gosh, that came unexpected, even within their new soundsphere.
However, they don't give up on the restrained moments, luckily, as these guys have so much feeling in them. Mostly it get's down to short tracks like "(still)" or "_", that are essentially interludes, but as important as "real tracks" to the whole album. "_" is perfectly placed between the already mentioned, most destructive song on the record, "IV" and the more hopeful closer "Miracles". It's the link between the two oh-so-differentiating songs. And this song, "Miracles", the closer, is like the relief after all the suffering that was going on in the 15 minutes prior to it. This is more in the "classic vein" of Emo, and while they're not going back to their early days, SOCCER. add another layer to the album. Miracles happen, even afer all the Hurting. And this journey with "Seasons move forward" is prove enough...
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