WAY OF THE DEAD

Yakuza's second album 'Way of the Dead' is a disturbing journey through the schizoid minds of its creators, offering music that shifts between laid-back psychedelic jazz jams and brutal sludge/hardcore (think Mastodon before they started adding iffy things like clean vocals and melodies).

The band doesn't bend the two components of their sound into one fluent style, but instead they simply switch styles inbetween separate songs: the first half of the album is dominated by heavy rough hardcore, and the closing 43 minutes long '01000011110011' is a stretched out post-rock jam recalling Miles Davis' psych-jazz jams of the early 70's, with Bruce Lamon's sax and clarinet taking up the trumpet role. Nothing heavy or metal about this track and it must have greatly disturbed expecting hardcore fans. For me it's the best bit of the album.

The band was put on hold after this album, but they returned 4 years later with an impressive series of albums that would further explore and perfect the two polar opposites of their sound, ultimately ending in the masterpiece 'Of Seismic Consequence' where all the elements of their sound would fall into place to create something entirely new and unique. But that's a story for later. 3.5 stars so far.