At the start of "Lotus Array", the final stand of Beyul, the latest album by Chicago heavy hybridizers Yakuza, the drums plod through a trance, and the saxophone unfurls an exotic melody. An electric guitar creeps into the mix, each note decaying between the patter. Putting down his horn, Bruce Lamont begins to paint an apocalyptic scene with his sterling baritone: "The chaos is calmed/ The end has come/ Time begins anew." He pauses for a moment to let the music gather beneath him. "Uncertainty reigns," he continues. "The new great awakening is here."
If, after a decade of fomenting denim-clad metal against strains of fire-music jazz and Middle Eastern inclinations, Yakuza now need a tagline, "uncertainty reigns" might tell most of their story. A band in constant musical motion, Yakuza know no stylistic constraints; a minute after that credo is aired, for instance, the guitars crank in velocity and volume, chugging in NWOBHM time as Lamont takes the role of ranting street-level seer. It's unexpected and intriguing, a union that's long been Yakuza's standard. During the last decade, Yakuza have emerged as the byproduct of their own artistic crucible, the city of Chicago. By namedropping Tortoise as a touchstone, recruiting local improvisational stars such as Hamid Drake or Ken Vandermark, and consistently recording with the producer that the Chicago Reader called "the man behind the metal" in 2010, they've reflected their homestead's own variegated and deep musical strains.
Beyul's seven tracks offer studies in action verbs-- guitars shriek and saxophones writhe, drums flail and electronics screech, voices roar and rhythms slingshot. With Yakuza, all of these things happen in quick succession. The record's first 30 seconds bury a heavy saxophone theme between forever-rolling drums and a dense wash of distortion; when Lamont starts to sing, the guitar suddenly laser-etches above a rhythm section suited for classic black wax. Before the song ends, though, Yakuza sound alternately like Swans, Melvins, and Iron Maiden. The brilliant "Man Is Machine" crams a bustle of activity into nine minutes that delight both in and with unpredictability. What starts as a math-rock sprint switches into a snarled dirge, a trio of Chicago saxophonists (Lamont, session player Mars Williams, and Vandermark associate Dave Rempis) battling a suffocating guitar sustain. There are downshifts into doom, instant flips into technical sprints, and stops between the two that suggest the viscosity of stoner rock. Yakuza tracks tend to feel like a series of interconnecting catacombs, inlets, and outlets redirecting the flow just beneath the surface.
Still, amid all the movement and complexity, what remains most remarkable about Yakuza is their obsequy to the idea of the song-- that is, if you're going to stick around for nine minutes of saxophone doom and resurgent thrash, you'd best leave with something to remember the time by. Though "The Last Day" eventually skips from moments of classic heavy-metal triumph to cello-assisted, chamber-ensemble elegance. Its first verse feels emphatic and enthusiastic enough to be a chorus; indeed, it's the theme that sticks around long after the song is done. "Fire Temple and Beyond" pivots on an unforgettable riff, ascending through repetition over a seesaw of bass.
That same balance of demand and relief seems to show in Beyul's sequence. After a stand of monstrous tracks and ahead of a closer that drifts into an exultant coda, Yakuza add two relatively short and simple respites. "Mouth of the Lion" is as close to singles territory as the band has ever come, with the song's thrash insistence tempered by a radiant chorus. It's more urgent than Torche's recent output. Subsequently, "Species" sprints through 90 seconds of grindcore, its hurdling drums and hurling vocals clawing toward a quick exit. But notice the way a buzzing counter-riff runs atop everything in "Species" or the throat singing that echoes through the mix during "Lion". Even in simplicity, Yakuza thrive on complication.
More so than previous Yakuza albums, Beyul's twists will push some listeners away. The uncertainty that reigns in these songs sometimes pushes too far, detracting from a tune's core by putting too much distance between it and the end product. But that's Yakuza's abiding and most alluring gauntlet, too: Rejected from Encyclopaedia Metallum for not being metal enough and often ignored by the experimental music community for being too metal, Yakuza continue to forge a specialized and strange alloy on Beyul. Don't expect to love all of their recombinations. Do, however, expect to be surprised by them.
