Albums have funny ways of revealing themselves. Some bands will front load with their best songs and by track four start to let you down. Some bands take the sneaky approach of a soft intro before hitting you over the head (I’m looking at you, Ride The Lightning). Yakuza‘s fifth full length, Of Cosmic Consequences, starts out with “The Ant People”, which is two plus minutes of hypnotically pulsating drums and throat singing. In the natural order of things, Yakuza are a metal band. One would be well within reason to believe this to be in the Ride The Lightning mold of bait and switch, and when the riff heavy “Thinning The Herd” kicks in you definitely might think you are on to Yakuza. You’d be wrong.

Of Cosmic Consequence is much more a spacey journey than it is a heavy, guitar driven one. In fact, Bruce Lamont’s sax is used more to add a Middle Eastern texture than its usually freak out jazzy scronk, and guitars disappear for minutes at a time. So, “The Ant People”, surprisingly, foreshadows the overall sound of the album more than it serves as a foil to a heaviness to follow. It might not be the Yakuza album you thought was coming, but it could easily be their best yet.

Yakuza have been around awhile. Their debut, Amount To Nothing came out in 2000, and since then they’ve been refining their sound. That sound? Metal mixed with free jazz, psychedelia and the above mentioned Middle Eastern flights of fancy. Early albums impressed with sheer virtuosity and Lamont’s frantic sax and vocals alike. As time moved on, the band began to let their songs breath a bit more, and on Of Cosmic Consequence, it feels like they’ve finally found that perfect balance. Gone, mostly, are Lamont’s demonic screams and sax freak outs. That’s not to say the album isn’t heavy. There’s plenty of metal riffage, but the heaviness also comes from the slow burning tunes and Hawkwind-like space jams. In a way, this is the Yakuza album I’ve been wanting to hear. I just didn’t know that till now.

Mastodon references in a metal review maybe cliche, but for the completely uninitiated, Yakuza tread in similar progressive waters. You won’t find the one big riff tunes of Metallica’s Black Album on Of Seismic Consequence. Thank god for that. The Mastodon similarities, however, end quickly in that Mastodon love piling riffs upon riffs whereas Yakuza use riffs more sparingly. Their progressiveness comes from the melding of styles and willingness to go long periods of time lulling you in before hitting you with what you may know as metal. The previously mentioned “Thinning the Herd” might be the most straight forward metal song here with Lamont’s vocals veering towards Ozzy territory.

It’s followed by “Stones and Bones” with its metal as fuck lyrics “rain of fire falls from the sky”, and three songs in, Of Seismic Consequence feels pretty much like a straight forward enough metal album. “Stones and Bones” goes from half speed riff to apocalyptic fury in grand metal tradition. Then it goes to…slow, slinky sax, and here’s where the album begins its transformation. “Be That As It May” is tabla drumming and atmospheric sax with rumbling bass below. Of course it eventually explodes into controlled chaos and back again. At eight plus minutes, the song encompasses all the things Yakuza are striving for on the album. That it’s followed by the even longer and more audacious “Farewell to the Flesh” just further solidifies the band’s conviction to their vision.

Confidence and audacity have never been issues for Yakuza. Bruce Lamont exudes both on record and even more so on stage. What makes “Of Seismic Consequence” rise above previous Yakuza records – and a lot of metal records in general – is that the ideas don’t feel overstuffed or claustrophobic as they occasionally had before. Maybe the edges have been softened, but songs like “Testing the Waters” and “Good Riddance (Knuckle Walkers)” prove that, when they want to, Yakuza still play some mean metal.

Like the best progressive music, Of Seismic Consequence is a perfectly paced album. What plays out within each song plays out in the album as well. Some bands should take note of this. I’ve argued that Oakland’s Saviours should be more pretentious in their approach, and that the Russian Circles album Geneva is a collection of good songs but paced so poorly that it doesn’t hold up well as an album. Of Seismic Consequence could serve as a manual on how to harness both.

On the heels of Nachtmystium’s Addicts, this album shows that Chicago’s metal scene is as diverse and as strong as any other similarly to the early 80′s Bay Area thrash scene. Of Seismic Consequence might be the Chicago “Master Of Puppets”, but it’s probably more akin to Voivod’s Dimension Hatross in that it takes metal’s rules and chucks them out the window. Either way, it’ll be an album you’ll still be pulling out years from now and thinking, “Holy fuck”, then “really?”, and then “holy fuck” once again.
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Catch Yakuza on Saturday, 10/16 at the Bottom Lounge! Tickets are available right now at Ticketweb.comfor $22.

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