SHUNKA RYOUGEN

Spike Sidor

4 years ago

HARU NEMURI

2022 EXPERIMENTAL ROCK

Shunka Ryougen is the second full length studio album from Japanese positive poetic force Haru Nemuri. It’s been a surprising amount of time since Haru burst onto the scene in 2018 with her debut Harutosyura that seamlessly blended post-hardcore, rap, and pop. I know, that combination brings to mind the worst stuff to grace the speakers of the early 2000s and whenever I describe it to a friend I always end on “trust me, it’s way better than that makes it sound”. In fact way better is underselling it, it was easily one of my favorites of the year. A tightly packed forty-eight minutes of vibrant production; the focal point of it all being Haru’s impassioned poetry delivered at a breathless gallop. She barely slowed down when it came to releases as well with a constant drip of singles and EPs to the point where I wondered if they were ever going to materialize into a full record or if this pattern was the new normal. Obviously it finally came but it quickly becomes clear this isn’t going to be the rip-roaring crowd-pleaser that was its predecessor.

As with any foreign language music there is a piece of it you will miss, good or otherwise but more than ever it feels like not knowing Japanese is a detriment to your enjoyment. Although it is less frequent then the spurts of sonic immediacy you will run into instances where Haru is spitting line after line and the cadence of her voice alone isn’t enough to carry your attention. Not to be all doom and gloom, there are great tracks here. It’s just not a record where you jack up the volume and jam out for the full length; holding onto headphones as if this whirlwind could rip them off at any moment.

The opener, sanctum sanctorum, does the job of setting up the tone exceedingly well. Organ and chanted vocals in multiple flavors give it an overt angelic quality but it’s not quite so grandiose. It’s a step below that, like heaven in crisis. This rolls right into Deconstruction that at its core is vintage Haru, but instead of a raging guitar we are treated to the aforementioned layered backing vocals. The verses are rattled off with charismatic confidence and the chorus has the force of an avenue wide parade. We get the rare scattered English on this track too which is mostly fine besides the oh so cliché pre-chorus where she dares to ask “where is my mind?”. I’m not wild about the hook on Never Let You Go but like all my favorite Haru songs it has a catchiness that permeates everything, from the return of the angsty guitars to the cymbal crashes.

Sci-fi infused electronics define Yume Wo Miteiru but they wear out half way through and when the peak flaccidly hits it feels as though I’m out of the loop as to how we got there. This is unfortunately followed by the first interlude track which is simply a minute and a half of spoken word. It’s got an awkward feeling, like a conversation you aren’t remotely in the know on so you are just waiting around hoping the topic changes to something you can contribute to with each passing second feeling longer than the last, and to top it all off it does nothing noticeable to transition into the title track. Regardless it’s great, a fusion of new and old, the old being scathing guitars and the new being sanctified vocals. The tension satisfyingly builds and is released in short screams that evoke the rougher stuff in the post-hardcore world. Seventh Heaven is anything but as its incessant blaring feels like a car alarm going on outside your apartment that just won’t stop, drowning out anything auditory in a full block radius. Right in time Pandora arrives on wings of delicate mallet percussion and the softest strings. A thick mist causes minor turbulence but overall it remains the picture of pleasantness.

The second interlude, iconostasis, is a foil to the first as it is an instrumental that retains the same divine sound. Like the name implies it is a screen separating sections of the record but that doesn’t stop the transition from it to Sister with Sisters from being horribly jarring. High-hats? Claps? Bad-ass attitude? We suddenly find ourselves in the midst of hip-hop but besides the sizable bump to get here there is nothing to complain about, its flow is irresistible. But this brings up a major flaw in Shunka and that’s its pacing. It’s an odd patchwork that never gets its footing. On first listen I felt a bit lost, often wondering how we got to this idea and why is this over an hour long? Not that it was bad but rather unengaging, it feels like a collection of tracks rather than a focused album.

I think most will consider Bang to be the crown jewel of the record and I can hardly argue. Very reminiscent of Harutosyura in its ultra fun exuberance. You can guess what the chorus will be like but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. I know I strongly emphasized the hip-hop infusion of Sister with Sisters but Old Fashioned is on a whole other level. I imagine Haru in a fully choreographed music video, backup dancers and sly hip sways rather than the usual imagery of her tightly gripping the mic desperate for an audience to hear every syllable. This weird kid has a lot of style. The name Kick in the World should be familiar to any Haru fan, the track dropped years ago and back then I loved it. This however is a new version and the major change is a wretched scream on the chorus that is so out of place it’s absurd. Sure, the delivery is ridiculous but it’s also mixed so far above anything else for the past hour. It has the vibes of a bad YouTube edit done for quick laughs. At glance value “Who the fuck is burning the forest” stands out pretty hard but in spite of its confrontational appearance it falls flat. Partially thanks to a hook that just doesn’t work and perhaps more due to the flavorless verses.

It closes out on Ikiru which is about the only Japanese I recognize as its the title of a famous Kurosawa film. It means life and It is a celebration of it. Plucky keys, hand claps, and swift riffs, smiling is required as you picture Haru on stage bouncing with joyful mirth. Well, that’s not actually the closer, but the brief omega et alpha is only a field recording prominently featuring crows, perhaps a harbinger of the end, perhaps an omen of humanity’s dark future, or maybe she just likes birds. Obviously I didn’t discuss all twenty-one tracks on Shunka Ryougen but a lot are six and seven out of ten songs. The issue is that out of all of them there are only a few that I love, add to that its haphazard assembly and it never manages to break the barrier to greatness. I can really see this turning fans off on first listen with little motivation to go back to the hour long journey but if you give it a chance you will find much of the excitement you were looking for.

7/10

SHUNKA RYOUGEN

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