Having witnessed significant change over their 32 year career, envy have remained a steadfast and dominant force within the country’s boundary-pushing heavy scene and beyond. With their original roots in thrash-metal and screamo still worn proudly on their sleeves, the band have steadily evolved their sound to incorporate euphoric elements of post-rock and shoegaze to spectacular effect.
‘Eunoia’ is truly a landmark album; the perfect balance of aggression and elation that sees the band’s revitalised lineup exploring a latent sense of powerlessness in the face of a fractured and increasingly divisive world.
Six years ago founding envy members Nobukata Kawai and Manabu Nakagawa were joined by new members yOshi, Yoshimitsu Taki and Hiroki Watanabe before the freshly bolstered five piece were reunited onstage in a surprise return of the band’s original frontman, Tetsuya Fukagawa.
The band’s latest release follows previous record ‘The Fallen Crimson’, an adrenaline rush of spoken word soliloquy alongside rich, reverberating guitar motifs and revitalised outbursts of discordant post-hardcore fury. ‘Eunoia’, a word describing the mutual feeling of goodwill that exists between a speaker and their audience, takes this dichotomy of calm and chaos and distils it even further, showcasing the band truly in their element, both on stage and in the studio.
Consisting only of songs that the band can and will play on stage, the album pivots around the idea of searching for hope and inspiration from day to day life whilst feeling powerless against the weight of the world. As such, the band expect their conscious use of minor keys and Tetsuya’s candid, diary-like lyrics to produce a despairing and remorseful record. However, whilst these emotions are keenly felt through ‘Eunoia’, the album feels far from defeated.
One of the first songs written for the record, ‘Beyond the Raindrops’ delivers an epic, halftime groove and soaring, wall-of-sound guitars that are as melancholic as they are magnificent when combined with Tetsu’s heartfelt lyrics. Elsewhere, tracks like ‘Whiteout’ channel envy’s frenetic origins with a pummelling drum solo introducing staccato post-hardcore guitar work and vocals that oscillate wildly between guttural roar and a rush of spoken words. However, it is ‘Imagination and Creation’, the album’s de facto opening track, that rings in our ears the loudest. Described by Nobukata as “a step forward into the future, using the past as nourishment”, the track sets the mood for the rest of the album; blast beat drums and shrieking guitars alongside a defiant and contagiously hopeful vocal melody serve as shards of light, warmth and hope that pierce the gloom, just as all feels lost.
‘Eunoia’ is a modern day masterpiece from a band with such a storied past who have learnt to cherish the now as a means of bracing themselves for whatever happens next.
‘Eunoia’ is out now.