{"id":8451,"date":"2014-01-28T17:24:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T17:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=8451"},"modified":"2014-01-28T17:24:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T17:24:10","slug":"yamantaka-sonic-titan-uzu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/01\/28\/yamantaka-sonic-titan-uzu\/","title":{"rendered":"Yamantaka \/\/ Sonic Titan \u2013 UZU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"YAMANTAKA-SONIC-TITAN-UZU-450x450\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

UZU<\/em> is a heavy record. It slays and stomps its way through YST\u2019s own special brands of prog, psychedelia, heavy metal, and even, at times, something like opera. All these influences on one album, including some East-meets-West cross-pollination (the first single, \u201cOne,\u201d starts off with a traditional Iroquois song), might seem like a mixture too ambitious, too muddled and confusing to achieve any definition of cohesive. But the end product is a blistering sharp, exciting, and innovative collection of songs.<\/p>\n

The lead track, \u201cAtalanta,\u201d meanders through dirge-y, ominous piano until it lets go to twinkling keys and thin but heavy female vocals, eventually surging into the hyper-proggy \u201cWhalesong,\u201d<\/a> driven by a riffy guitar that only holds off to showcase a quick but gorgeous piano and vocals break. The walls of guitar and psychedelic swirl keep the pace until \u201cSeasickness Pt. 1,\u201d which sounds like a sparse, demented take on R&B, with a lone piano and the crash of waves backing up a simple but soulful vocal performance. It doesn\u2019t last long, though, as it seamlessly flows into \u201cSeasickness Pt. 2,\u201d the closest thing UZU<\/em> has to a pop song (as in, a pop song full of metal guitar and twinkly synth). The whole twisted experiment ends with the tragic-sounding, piano-driven opera of \u201cSaturn\u2019s Return,\u201d which devolves into a cacophony of white noise.<\/p>\n

UZU<\/em>\u2019s weird, savage fantasy makes it instantly unforgettable \u2013 one of those rare albums that\u2019s as accessible as it is strange. (Paper Bag Records, ytstlabs.com<\/a>) Matt Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UZU is a heavy record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[762,1056],"class_list":["post-8451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-psych","tag-utn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}