Style: Djent, Experimental, Free Form, Industrial (Instrumental)
Review by: Mathis
Country: Norway
Release date: February 18, 2022
Since the dawn of time humans (and their ancestors?) have used their big primate brains to create. One of these ever evolving creations is music, an expression of artistry and originality that as long as humans live, is limitless. It may seem like there isn’t much left that hasn’t been done already, but I can assure you Yawn will prove you otherwise. Yawn’s Materialism releases February eighteenth, but we were able to get our hands on it early. Here is what we loved, liked, and disliked about Materialism.
Right out of the gates Yawn makes an amazing impression, which is especially important because I usually don’t give a hoot about “djentstrumental” bands. Track one, appropriately named “Cement III _ Gobsmack” left me gobsmacked, which happens to be a real word that means astounded. The track is a hard hitting djenty masterpiece, I can’t tell what time signature is being used or what is going on really, but it sounds epic. My brain immediately thought this sounds like Car Bomb, but it’s still different. There is some industrial/ techno kind of stuff going on here too that kind of reminds me of The Algorithm, but is much less prominent. There are a few other songs like this on the album, another notable one is “Lachrymator II _ Unstoppable force”.
Other than the chuggy odd time heavy stuff there is the occasional lead jazz guitar that compliments the heavier portion of the music very well. Djent is like that friend that you will always love, but sometimes they just overstay their welcome and get on your nerves. If your friend djent is accompanied by his girlfriend jazz, however, then he becomes more tolerable. Basically the softer melodic jazz guitar is a great contrast to the heavy riffs, and although it is mostly improvisational soloing, it still adds structure to the song. My favorite example of this is “Cement III _ Restart, Reload, Rebuild”. The song starts off heavy but once the lead guitar comes in the track becomes much lighter. Later the heavy riffage comes back to join with the jazz guitar which makes the song feel more complete. This song may be the most traditional of Yawn’s in terms of structure, but doesn’t feel like an outlier in the entirety of Materialism.
I had some nice stuff to say about this album, but I have just as much to complain about. I think there are some major issues with Materialism. I don’t want to totally destroy it because I know it is meant to be experimental, so I will do my best to explain why my gripes are valid in an objective way. For starters only three of the sixteen tracks are at least three minutes long, this is problematic because all of the nice things I said earlier are short lived. It is hard to listen to this album front to back because it has a lot of short songs, with very few hooks like melodies or simple riffs. It has no vocals to rely on either, which is fine, but without them there should be some other reason to listen other than hearing some weird experimental stuff. What drives the dagger deeper is the fact that littered throughout the album are noises. I would direct the reader to Devin Townsend’s Devlab as a reference to these noises. At least half of Materialism is ambient noise, and you can’t fall asleep to it either because of the loud crazy riffs that appear from time to time. I mean what else is ambient noise good for anyway?
Yawn didn’t make a bad album, but they didn’t blow my mind either. I think that this album shines most with it’s first listen, and then as soon as the last song ends, it dies. I may never listen to it again. It’s kind of an experience more than something you would play on your drive to work. There is a niche target audience that Materialism will appeal too, particularly fans of Car Bomb and Meshuggah, but I doubt they will enjoy more than half of the songs. It is worth a listen though – there is some neat stuff happening, just not much that’s worth repeating.
Recommended tracks: Cement III _ Gobsmack, Cement III _ Restart, Reload, Rebuild
Recommended for fans of: Car Bomb, Meshuggah, The Algorithm
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Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook
Label: Mindsweeper Records
Yawn is:
– Oskar Johnsen Rydh (Drums)
– Torfinn Sommerfeldt Lysne (Guitar)
– Mike McCormick (Guitar/Supercollider)
– Tarjei Kjerland Lienig (Synthesizer)
– Simen Wie (Bass)
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