I have reviewed albums from The Silence before, specifically back in 2015 with the self-titled album from the Japanese band, but I somehow lost track of their stuff. The group's newest album, the appropriately-named Metaphysical Feedback, is out today via Drag City, and it's an interesting and brave exploration of Sixties-flavored acid rock landscapes, and noise freak-out stuff. Behind leader Masaki Batoh (Ghost), the players here make a sound unlike much else that's out there these days.
"Freedom" offers up a stomp mixed with proto-psychedelia, while "Okoku" is part Zappa funk, part prog rock. If "The Crystal World" is nearly jazzy, "Lighting Struck Baby Born" is free-form fusion. The Silence attack this material with the precision of rockers well-versed in progressive music, and with the loose confidence of the best improvisational jazz-men. Metaphysical Feedback is, in a way, more accessible than lots of what Masaki Batoh has been associated with in the past, even if parts of this record are full of unbridled fury, and delightful dark energy.
Metaphysical Feedback is out today via Drag City.
[Photo: Kazuyuki Funaki]