Liverpool post-rock quartet offer up a cracking new EP and look set to make themselves heard ahead of the record’s launch night. Getintothis’ Joseph Viney is left dizzy by their shifting sounds.
Kusanagi take their name from a legendary Japanese sword and much like their bladed namesake, this dizzying Liverpool quartet are sharp, flexible and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.
Given its title, it is with some inevitability that their forthcoming EP They Will Come Back For You… maintains an air of malevolence and foreboding throughout.
Opener Spires writhes and crashes like some gasping sea monster, shifting between moods via intricate musical passages that seem almost unreal on the first few listens. Rhinoceros segues into some dystopian approximation of flamenco at the halfway point and part of you would love the idea of it being done in one take, no struggles.
It’s this shading of emotions that characterises both the EP and Kusanagi’s overall sound. It is present within each of the six tracks, almost a different set of feelings for every day of the week!
Kusanagi’s musical versatility is also a major virtue of theirs. Away from the atmospherics that pepper the majority of their tracks, there is the funk-ridden bassline on One Day, They Will Come Back For You…, the sparse electronica on closing track (and rather confusingly named) They Will Come Back For You… while What Fools These Mortals just puts a foot to the floor with reckless abandon and has you wondering just how it will sound live.
Ah, yes…talk about convenient. Kusanagi are launching their EP on Saturday January 25 at the Ship & Mitre, and it’s nice to see another Liverpool drinking mainstay make a play as a burgeoning gig venue.
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