YAMANTAKA//SONIC TITAN play the Garrison January 28. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Style-bending has practically become the norm, but a few groups still approach classification as a direct challenge. Yamantaka//Sonic Titan use confusion as their launch point, blending their fractured Anglo-Asian diaspora identity (of the core duo, one is Japanese-Scottish, the other Chinese-Irish), multimedia aesthetic and split Toronto-Montreal residency into a made-up genre they call “Noh-Wave.”
This debut album, a seven-song cycle that will be later repurposed into a full-blown rock opera called Star, is all over the map, equally embracing sweet J-pop vocals, pummelling stoner metal riffs, swirling carnival synths and a healthy wallop of 70s-style prog rock. That’s a lot of territory to cover in just over half an hour, and yet it’s weirdly cohesive – emphasis on the “weird.” It’s intentionally confounding and endlessly ambitious, but also eminently listenable. Hopefully it’s a tasty morsel of bigger things to come.
Top track: Hoshi Neko
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