As Hanazono opens with ‘34 DANCE’ it sounds like a bizarre hybrid of Blonde Redhead and Battles. A screeching lead guitar assaults the ears while a grooving bassline keeps the noise grounded.
Abrasive is the best word to describe Hyacca’s sound. They are noisy, sloppy and on the brink of being a complete mess. But, they manage to navigate this precipice with a savant-like precision and have created a consistently great album once you get past the initial shock.
Hyacca’s chops are, in fact, tightly refined, but their style is so loose and organic that it takes time to realize that they’re doing more than just making noise. Music that takes an honest-to-goodness effort to appreciate is a hard sell in the days of mp3 downloads and iTunes. It’s very easy (and tempting) to sample a band’s myspace page for two minutes, make a snap decision and either hail them as heroes or slam them.
Hanazono reaches its peak towards its conclusion. The penultimate title-track and the closer ‘Stress’ reach the best balance of grit and order, with the break at the half-way point of ‘Stress’ creating a triumphant climax.
Ultimately, Hanazono is full of math-rock grooves, intense guitars and a lot of great hooks underneath a gritty cover of distortion. The effort it takes to uncover those strengths is well worth it. Hopefully, when it comes time for their next album, they’ll have a higher recording budget, but this is an excellent and ambitious album.
Hanazono is available through Call & Response Records throughout Japan.
Hyacca MySpace | Official Website
Audio – “Stress”:
