I first heard of Yakuza when Samsara, their previous album got a gushing review on Blabbermouth, and even in a year with several exceptional albums — Samsara held its own pretty well.

On Transmutations, Yakuza’s weird hybrid of progressive rock, DEP-esque hyper-kinetic grindcore and quieter bits that evoke (but don’t rip off) Tool is much in evidence. These points of reference are essentially rather vague — there’s no band that Yakuza actually sounds like other than Yakuza itself. Whether this amalgam is driven by a genuine desire to fuse influences and sounds or by a more cynical ‘let’s throw a lot of shit at the listener and hope at least some of it sticks’ attitude is open to debate. There seems to be enough evidence to support either hypothesis. Even on Transmutations which is a lot more polished than Samsara, some of the sonic transitions do strike one as jarring and just a little forced.

And yet, it’s the songs where Yakuza is going balls-out crazy that are the most exciting — the more conventional tracks, of which there are only a couple, leave no impact. Where it all comes together perfectly is on songs like The Blinding (my personal favourite), Egocide, Black Market Liver, Congestive Art Failure, and Perception Management (which features vocalist Bruce Lamont’s most impressive vocal performance so far. Which is not to say he’s a brilliant vocalist or anything; he just doesn’t sound as terrible and absurdly angry as he did on a lot of Samsara.)

Some folks have argued that Yakuza sound more comfortable during the tranquil parts of their album and, yes, the metalcorey segments do sound a tad generic. But I think the sheer energy and variety of the heavy bits are a great payoff after the softer parts — I seriously doubt I could take an entire album’s worth of vaguely jazz fusion-alike sax noodling and Lamont’s thin reedy voice.

Transmutations is an interesting album and definitely one that you ought to check out, even if does fall a few paces short of true greatness.  

Year of Release: 2007

Label: Prosthetic Records