Kakihara – Love Songs Part 2 (Graybeard Post-Mathcore)
I haven’t had something like this in awhile, at least that I enjoyed, to be specific. But it’s a hard market to really catch attention in the post-hardcore, post-mathcore, post-whatevercore swamp. I guess that’s the case with any genre, but metalheads seem more willing to permit experimentation and at least try to accept it, whereas hardcore and all of its ilk tends to snuggle up in nostalgia far too much. Street punks too. Grow up. Get some life experiences. It makes your music stronger. That being said, I expected something different from the UK’s Kakihara, who apparently named themselves after a Japanese voice actor. Post-hardcore with some math breakdowns and a cover like that? Hmm, yeah, let’s see what they got. I got a feeling the paradoxes herein are going to hit hard.
Exploring emotional turbulence, and laying out the angst, Love Songs Part 2 is short, but it provides more dissonant thrills than I normally see with this stuff. Barely an EP, this shit comes fast with its jagged guitars, touches of polyrhythms, and the expected angry shouting. That part, in particular, is critical here. You need a cathartic energy for this kind of music to succeed, but without some real-life experience behind it, it comes off as a teenager screaming in text for their parents to drop them some more Robux. Dudes here, however, are graybeards, and you’ll get the sense that they’ve seen it and lived it, and now you get to hear it in the form of sick breakdowns. Love songs are subverted. You’ll find no saccharine romance. This is instead the real-life shit of obsession, betrayal, and the dread that comes with realizing fantasy is nothingness. That kind of poetry is key, and with a slight touch of doom, you’re going to feel like you want to forget that everything’s not going to be okay.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Kakihara – Love Songs Part 2
Ripcord Records
Cover Art: Kris Glennon
4.2 / 5
