Yakuza-Transmutations

Prosthetic
2007


Some times the key to growing beyond an established form of music is to add or blend in elements from other musical forms. Sounds promising in print, but everything relies on the band having both the playing and writing ability to make something like this really work. Chicago's Yakuza attempt to blend jazz and world beat music in with a death metal and grindcore sound. The idea sounds interesting and even feasible because other types of music have been fused with these forms of heavy music. I actually think the jazz parts sound decent enough, but somehow I was expecting and hoping for a blending of this style with the heavy parts. Largely the styles were played seperate more than they were fused together and I was hoping for the latter. The second part that troubles me is that for the band's heavier parts are a bit unremarkable. Okay, drummer James Staffel is certainly above average for this style of music as he pounds and tears his way through. Yet the majority of the heavy songs are just rather okay in their approach and energy level. I gave the album several listens hoping it would click, but it just never happened. The results were always the same and I felt like the idea behind this album was never fully embraced or at least not like I had hoped it would be. I think the musical ability can be there and that this idea may be worth pursuing, but that means the writing needs to be stonger to make this work. The parts seemed to seperate and didn't compliment each other and I think more of a blending of styles could have worked and would have at least made it more interesting. That's what it needed because the end results here were far more more bland than I was expecting.