TRICOT

Personal highlights to me are T2 (fun and poppy), T3 (quirky yet upbeat--the first more progressive, experimental song), T6 (groovy and infectious), and T7 (quirky yet poppy; very fun; most mathy so far--"Dogs and Ducks"!!! haha).

That's it though. I felt that the beginning and end of the album were a tad weak. In the least, I implore fans (past, present or otherwise) to check out the above mentioned (personal) highlights.

The general sonority of the band is the common math rock that someone who knows the genre is familiar with, weird time signatures delivered in an energetic and "punk-ish" way, the thing that is different about this band are that they are more oriented to pop-rock/j-pop and I think the compositions tend to be less daring than we normally see in the genre.

As usual of math-rock, the band members are highly skilled in their instruments and play the tracks in a very impressive way. The problem that could be perceived listening to the album is that doesn't take much to starts sound formulaic and "simple", don't get me wrong, as I said everything is played in a very technical way but the compositions don't have the feeling that is trying to innovate, it sounds much common to math-rock and the band is playing in a very "safe-zone".

The songs have vocals in Japanese and are very good, the tracks are sung in a "pop" manner, sometimes the singing goes pretty high and the track receives a very dramatic aspect.

This is a very solid album, none of the songs are bad but most of them are not exceptional, it accomplishes the goal of a debut album that is to establish the band's identity and made me interested in their next works. It could sound too simple for those who like more "avant-garde" things but if you are familiar with math-rock and want something that just sounds cool and will entertain you for the next 48 minutes, I recommend this record. 3 Stars.

真っ黒 Makkuro is the kind of album that puts some serious arithmetic into the math rock process with knotty jangled guitar chords zigging and zagging all over the bass groove and jazzified drumming with TRICOT's signature cutesy Japanese girl vocal style that creates a contrast that can be compared to a beauty and the beast style only no metal involved here. The band has toured extensively since 2015 by leaving Japan and heading to both Europe and North America and carries with it a decade of experience both in the studio and on the road and album number four cranks out 12 tracks and 2 bonus tracks on some additions that fortifies the jittery guitar fueled math knots into J-pop charm all completely sung in the Japanese language.

While TRICOT's rhythmic stylistic approach has been math rock through and through, 真っ黒 Makkuro tames down the band's previous anarchic approach a tad and gears for a somewhat more polished sound as if the gals are making a beeline to the middle as such styles of prog lite are becoming more popular in hipster circles. In particular the production is less punky and more polished with beautiful tones and timbres clashing with dissonant guitar angularities and bass and drum barrages. The cleaner guitar segments are quite jazzy with off-kilter time signatures delivering the expect math rock herky jerkiness that offers a plethora of start / stop chord explosions and asymmetrical flows of eruptive youthful energy. Only Nakajima's sweet schoolgirl vocals keep this in the realms of power pop albeit one that has gone completely wrong.

While i'm not familiar with the band's output this album does check off all the basics of Japanese girl bands while delivering a healthy dose of non-conforming math rock in all its excesses. Scattered deviant counterpoints and harmonic incongruences rule the roost on 真っ黒 Makkuro but its once again the sweet innocence of the vocals that keeps this in some sort of vocal jazz limbo where the band seems to be playing from another dimension. This is decent stuff if you love dissonant outbursts of frenetically choppy progified jangle pop with the exotic flair of being sun in Japanese but neither will this convert any non-believers of the math rock experience into swallowing the koolaid either. For my money this one is a little to homogenous in its 50 minute runs despite some decent hooks that bend like refracted light never to return to the source. The compositions are about as math rock as you can get although the variety between them could've been a bit better. Still not bad at all.

3.5 rounded down