Anathème – Kodama San (2012)

Arriving today from France we have Anathème and their Japanese themed “Kodama San” release. Featuring five brilliant Post-Rock tracks, this release gets the band comparisons to Godspeed Your Black Emperor, Mogwai, Tides of Nebula, and Poland’s Lebowski. Adorned by excellent cover art, the listener gets a fully immersive experience with this album and the band’s expansive yet melancholic music.

Opening with the eloquently titled “Gizmo vs 21st Passenger”, the band uses some cool spoken vocal/samples in Japanese to set the mood as their dreamy guitars lead the way. The vocal arrangements in this track are quite hypnotic and enjoying thanks to some catchy riffs. Further developing their sound with the cascading guitars/drums in “Le Russe Blanc”, we are immediately captivated by the band’s focus on atmosphere and how skilled they are at crafting moving songs.

Not afraid of delivering drifting ethereal pieces, “Entendre les Falaises” slowly builds up to Post-Rock greatness with some weeping guitars and a very dreamy atmosphere. “Hou A K” nicely changes the pace of things with some much needed ‘aggression’ in a very traditional fashion, allowing this release no never get monotonous. Closing the release we have another ethereal piece titled “Take Care, Wolf Will Bite You!” that slowly builds up and creates great levels of soft tension thanks to its excellent instrumentation.

As a whole, “Kodama San” is one hell of a Post-Rock release from a very talented band. Anathème perfectly layers all of their instruments to create moving and highly crafty songs, making them a very well balanced band. If you are a fan of Post-Rock and would like to get a high dose of melancholy, stop reading this and buy yourself a copy of this release.

Label: Self-Released

Release: September 15th, 2012

Genre: Post-Rock

Country: France