THE WORLD HERITAGE

The best way I can think of to describe this band's music is Korekyojinn with one to two extra instruments and a lot more improvisational. As the lineup info shows above, some tracks are simply Korekyojinn+Katsui on violin, while others have all of Korekyojinn plus Katsui and Yamamoto both joining in, and some don't include Kido. Really, we get to hear three different lineups of the group on the album. As far as their ability goes, everyone here is a more than competent improviser. Occasionally some of the pieces drag in places, but never long enough that I want to skip the track. Usually right after a dragging bit they come back with something extra fun, so it all evens out in the end. A lot of the music displayed here is noisy and chaotic, but that's something I've come to expect from improvisational bits from Yoshida and crew, and something I really enjoy, since it never crosses over to the realm of "mostly noise".

Overall, this isn't one of my absolute favorite Yoshida groups - I prefer the more composed sound of Korekyojinn more when I want that, and the chaos of Ruins more when I want chaos. Still, this album is quite a lot of fun, and I would recommend it to any fan of the instrumental side of Yoshida's work with full groups (as opposed to the drums and bass only approach of Ruins). Really 3.75 stars, rounded to 4.

As a result, music is less noisy and brutal, than on Ruins album, has more melodic elements and in fact are kind of improvisational jazz-rock. Stylistically sound is more similar to Bondage Fruit's one, and in whole could be described as strongly psychedelic jazzy rock or avant kraut.

It's interesting to listen Yoshida's as usual very technical, but not extremely fast and brutal drumming and his interplays with scratching guitars. Violin sound is quite fast and radical, but in all gives some fusion feeling. Bass sound is on support mostly, so again in total all album's atmosphere is much more spacey, a bit softer and slightly jazzy, than in many Ruins albums.

Really interesting album for all Yoshida fans, lovers of technical avant prog improvs and possibly even for some open ears avant jazz listeners.