I always love to receive an album to review from Fluttery Records, a “bright home of ambient, modern classical and post-rock” music. The latest offer from the "United Nations of Fluttery Records" is the split EP between the post-rockers Neko Nine and the Japanese band The Creator Of.
Meet The Forest – this is the title of the four track EP – is so damn good and it will blow your mind from the very first minute. I didn't expect so much goodness and I was curious to get to know how two bands like Neko Nine and The Creator Of could sound together considering their different style.
This EP consists of two tracks from Neko Nine and two from The Creator Of creating a collection that is very brilliant. In about 25 minutes the two bands involved manage to pack more than several bands can do in a full length album. I find their quality-control very strong, their attention to details definitely notable and they show the unique results of the experimentation to explore new possibilities of post-rock sounds.
Neko Nine is a four-piece band from Yaroslavl, Russian Federation, that plays, as they say, “just beautiful music, sometimes aggressive, sometimes meditative”. Their music style is post-rock and post-metal; experimental in general. If you don't know them yet, start listening to the album Summer that is very emotional and it's rather post-metal than post-rock. The Creator Of is a quintet from Tokyo, Japan, and together these guys cover a wide range of music genre, from grunge to post-rock, from punk to hardcore, from heavy metal to stoner to doom to psychedelic. In practice they never stop experimenting to deliver a mix of sounds that is really interesting. Light is a great album to get to know them closer.
The melting pot between these two bands is Meet The Forest and diving into it is like walking in a deep forest where there's a lot of light, yes, but also darkness and foggy meditative atmospheres together with large spaces under the brightest sun. It's like having fall, winter and spring seasons mixed together in wonderful composition.
The EP starts in Japan with 'Black Star (Alt Mix)' and I don't remember I've heard so many albums kick-off like this one. There is so much to listen to: you focus on one instrument and you hear some cool music, and then focus on another instrument and it shimmers into something slightly different. This track is a work of art!
The following 'Acoustic' is not acoustic at all. It comes from the same band but it's completely different proving the versatility of these Japanese guys. Sometimes the sound is even ethnic.There's a little more depth and it recalls the style of Cloudkicker in its first half and the sound of Tool band in its final part. This song is great ride across the valleys of post-rock, math rock and space rock. The Creator Of is a band that deserves our attention.
'Fireworks Up There' opens up the Russian side of the EP and it's where the album achieves its peak. This track is really a firework : it's cinematic, it's full of light and somewhere it's also heavy, it's filled with pure energetic guitar sound. Neko Nine delivers also the closing track title 'Snowflakes Gone Grey' where the Russian guys use a flute that is really enchanting. It's sound completes the overall composition like the final brush of paint that gives to the paint that nuance that it otherwise wouldn't have. It gives that touch that makes the difference. The song changes towards the end where heavy guitars make it deeper before living the stage to nice handclaps and echoing chorus that seems to celebrate the end of a really good tune.
From the cover art, to the album title, to the song title, to the atmosphere, to the measured anxious melodies mixed with harsh guitar sound of the Japanese band, to the eclectic style and the rock drums which sometimes become folk of the Russian band, Meet The Forest is the proof of a great collaboration.
Highly recommended!
Tracklist:
1. The Creator Of - Black Star (alt mix)
2. The Creator Of - Acoustic (2013 mix)
3. Neko Nine - Fireworks up there
4. Neko Nine - Snowflakes gone grey
