About Me
ABOUT WE'RE FROM JAPAN!
We're from Japan!
Now Breathe (2008)
Score: 8/10
First things first: We’re from Japan! is actually from Portland, Oregon. But they may as well be from Japan, because they’re signed to Zankyo Records, and their overseas fan base adores them. It’s always embarrassing when another country “gets†the music of a quality act before the home country, but even Jesus wasn’t appreciated in his home town. I, for one, would love to see this band break big in the U.S. They’ve been paying their dues for five years now, they’re enormously appealing, and they have demonstrated that they are willing to take creative, counter-instinctive risks to further their sound.
We’re from Japan!’s last album, 48 Minutes, 07 Seconds, Then the Open Air (available domestically from Jackpot Records) was a solid post-rock effort that presented the requisite builds, drops and crescendos, but did so in a relatively unassuming way. Standout track “Larsen B†concluded in a wash of strings that peaked all too early; other tracks tended toward the languid and soothing. While there was nothing wrong with this, and the album was certainly worth purchasing, it was not especially memorable, and the listening experience soon faded from memory.
How then would the band improve their sound? Oddly enough, by dropping the piano and strings, a move that I would normally never recommend. Many post-rock bands would kill to have these elements, but either can’t afford them or can’t find suitable, talented candidates. (Two are now available!) Then again, Saxon Shore performs live with four guitarists and a drummer, and they do just fine. We’re from Japan! sounds a little like that East Coast collective, and a little like the recent incarnation of Gifts From Enola. While not particularly unique, they do modern post-rock particularly well, a welcome addition to the field during a time in which we are suffering a dearth of truly qualified performers. Losing the piano and strings has freed the band to be more aggressive: their peaks are higher, and they have shoveled extra guitar into their valleys.
In the age of iTunes, the pressure is off of groups to present coherent albums. Many are content to coast on the buzz created by one or two catchy tunes. That’s why it’s so refreshing to encounter an album that offers not a single duff track, an album that can be listened to repeatedly, an album that offers different highlights with every encounter. Usually I find that after a few listens, certain tracks begin to present themselves as disposable. Not so in this case. That being said, there are two tracks on Now Breathe that truly stand out, albeit in diametrically-opposed ways.
“There Are Horses in the Streets†is the track that makes the listener put down the book, drop the spatula, put the caller on hold, stop texting, sit up and take notice. It starts with a bang, a rustle of drums, a squelch of guitars, a melodic propulsion, and swiftly enters into a series of swoops and swoons which leave the listener breathless and the woofers gasping for air. The Big Moment arrives four minutes in, as the song topples into a pounding, half-tempo trough.
The album’s highlight, however, is the closing piece, the nearly 13-minute “September 13, 1848.†On this date, rail worker Phineas Gage had a tamping iron blasted through his frontal lobes. The 26-year old, with a bar sticking out of his eye, walked toward assistance, sat upright all the way to town, and lived another twelve years. His personality, however, was afterwards observed to change from “hard-working and responsible†to “capricious and profane.†We’re from Japan!’s truly epic piece seems to soundtrack the accident, the emotional fluctuation, the slow, sad retreat from polite society. (The complete stop at 3:36 likely represents the moment after the impaling blow.) If not for the absence of vocals, “September 13, 1848†would be right at home on an iLiKETRAiNS album. One of the tracks of the year? Absolutely.
Three years ago, We’re From Japan! ended up on TSB’s list of “25 Missed Releases of 2005.†We’d like to think that this corrects the injustice, so take it from me: Don’t miss out on this one!
-Richard Allen
Written By: host
Date Posted: 6/28/2008
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