Japanese Screamo masters are back. envy offers us a new album.
Since nearly thirty years and seven full-lengths, envy has a very peculiar style, however as large as intense. Tetsuya Fukagawa (vocals/keyboards), Nobukata Kawai (guitar), Manabu Nakagawa (bass), Yoshi (guitar), Yoshimitsu Taki (guitar) and Hiroki Watanabe (drums, Heaven in her Arms) entitled this album The Fallen Crimson.
Through numerous releases, as albums, EPs or splits, envy proved its quality and its strength, that the japanese matérialize under the shape of a permanent duality. The riffs’ softness and intensity meet a visceral scream that sometimes melt into simple spoken words, then the storm goes back. That’s exactly what The Fallen Crimson is. More powerful, more crazy, more achieved, but also more diversified.
The album is made of twelve songs, that reflect the band’s music essence, gathering the whole creative madness, the raw energy, the soaring softness and above all the will. Whether the band offers a true unfurling wave on Statement of Freedom and Swaying leaved and scattering breath, two songs that let us look at some more airy influences, A Faint New World confirms that quietness is present into the band’s the band’s riffs. Tetsuya let vocals to an enchanting female voice for Rhythm while fury comes back for Marginalized Thread, a song that strangely fascinates us. The chorus is just wonderful.
The band mesmerizes us with HIKARI, a slow and stabbing song that once again highlights this intense, hovering and melancholic dimension, as well as the soft Eternal Memories and Reincarnation, that offers us few words by the singer on a very quiet rhythmic. Rage surfaces again with Fingerprint Mark, a short song that offers this raw pureness, this uncompromising violence but however this flood of emotions. Dawn and Gaze takes this contrast back between a heavy and sharp introduction, some spoken words, then screams and a heady rhythmic. Impossible not to be caught into the dissonant storm the band offers, and which will strike again before Memories and the Limit. The composition is made of those piercing but soft leads, this impressive then airy rhythmic, and above all of this incredible musicianship, as well as A Step in the Morning Glow, the last song. Do you want a final on a climax? The song offers one as I’ve rarely heard…
Whether envy offers a similar recipe since nearly thirty years, the band relentlessly offers an incredible renewal. The Fallen Crimson a storm of intensity and violence as well as softness that please to fans while conquering newcomers’ heart.
95/100
