With a diamond back-catalogue of flawless, genre breaking metal with no stylistic constraints, Yakuza are maestros of highly creative, extreme music, ever ahead of the game.
Over 10 years after their last release, Yakuza have returned with Sutra, losing none of their expansive and wildly artistic approach to pushing the boundaries of heavy music. Sutra leans in on redefining the limits of heavy and eclectic metal, with songs like “Echoes From The Sky"’s epic sung vocals and zig zagging slabs of juggernaut riffing, all sewn together with Voivod chords and King Crimson structures, never coming apart but embracing the delightfully chaotic.
Songs like “Alice” with its surge like quality, never heard before in Yakuza’s music, and new single, “Psychic Malaise", with an exciting new vocal approach, drive through a feeling of a band not only in their prime but with many new sides of their sound story to express.
Bruce Lamont (vox/sax) about "Psychic Malaise": "Do you know someone with extra sensory abilities? Someone who is telepathic? Someone who can teleport themselves to another dimension? Can you imagine the burden and the stress of having those abilities? The burnout of being able to do what others cannot with their mind. The term is Psychic Malaise."
From Matt McClelland (guitar): "The song is like a journey through the swing of a pendulum pulling back and forth and side to side, steadily coming closer and closer to slice."
Listen to "Psychic Malaise" below, and pre-order the new album here.
Tracklisting:
"2Is1"
"Alice"
"Echoes From The Sky"
"Embers"
"Capricorn Rising"
"Burn Before Reading"
"Walking God"
"Into Forever"
"Psychic Malaise"
"Never The Less"
"Psychic Malaise":
From their break-out debut album Amount to Nothing'in 2000, which was met with critical acclaim, Yakuza have been a phenomenon in the world of heavy music, hot on the tongues of those who know. Their second album Way of the Dead in 2002 landed Yakuza a deal with Century Media and worldwide notoriety, securing them live slots with like-minded progressive heavyweights like Candira, Opeth, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Lacuna Coil and Mastodon.
Several albums of top tier eccentric metal followed with Samsara in 2006 which was recorded by Matt Bayles (Isis, Botch, Pearl Jam) and featured Sanford Parker, and Mastodon’s Troy Sanders; the jazzier and spaced-out Transmutations in 2007, and Of Seismic Consequence in 2010 and Beyul in 2012 respectively released on cult underground label Profound Lore.
Like John Coltrane jamming with Napalm Death, Bruce Lamont (saxophone, vocals) has discussed an appreciation for Pink Floyd, Huun Huur Tu, Peter Brötzmann, Battles, Enslaved, Brighter Death Now, George Orwell, Ethiopian music, and Blut AusNord, perfectly picking up on the multifaceted angles that Yakuza exhibits. Standing in a world utterly of their own making, Yakuza’s unique mind-melting post-rock has never felt more ripe and fitting for the current state of the planet.
Singer Bruce Lamont opts for letting Yakuza’s music do the magic, explaining that, “Experience is subjective, and we hope each listener can come away with their own interpretation. We hope you go into this listening experience with an open mind and heart."
If ever there was a metal album where approaching with an open mind will reap rich rewards, then Yakuza’s Sutra is it. A thinking person’s extreme and inventive metal band, check out first single "Alice" to have your expectations and understanding of heavy music turned upside down and inside out.
A genre crushing album of forward thinking metal for the modern age, Sutra is a powerhouse of unlimited expression and molten riffs. Formed in 1999, Chicago based heavy hybridizers Yakuza, are in a genre all of their own, which Pitchfork describes as a “a specialized and strange alloy”.
So eclectic and hard to pigeon-hole, their music has been described over the years as everything from avant-garde metal, progressive metal, alternative metal to experimental rock, jazz metal, art metal and post-metal. Incorporating psychedelic rock jams that sprawl into heavy, sludging Doom with jazz influences, while also incorporating breakneck grind riffs and grooves, makes Yakuza’s new album Sutra, a long awaited and insanely enjoyable feast of frequencies.
Yakuza are:
James Staffel - Drums and percussion
Matt McClelland - guitar/ backing vocals
Jerome Marshall - bass
Bruce Lamont - vocals and saxophone
