The members of sgt. fall into a lineup a bit more like that of a jazz quintet than a traditional rock band. Drummer Hitoshi Ono and bassist Kouji Akashi form the band's solid backbone, proving the beat and pulse. Guitarist Hironori Taoka also falls into this role, merely fleshing out the band's sound rather than performing any virtuosic feats on the fretboard. Violinist Mikiko Narui most often falls into the role of soloist, taking the place of a saxophone or trumpet. She also takes the melody almost exclusively, in those rare cases when there is one to take.
sgt. isn't exactly well known for short, pithy and easily digestible songs. That's not to say that they're overly infatuated with creating inscrutable, million changes-a-second math rock or imposing sonic mountains. Their songs are more like a walk down a long, dimly lit path near stormy seas than any sort of road-map like the more universal language of verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus chorus.
Having said that, Capital of Gravity, sgt's third mini-album (available now at HearJapan) is even more likely to get distracted and wander around that path than their previous releases.
sgt.
Capital of Gravity
Youth Inc.
After "Kalliope," the brief introduction, the band jump full force into "Apollo Program." It's a song that has all of the band's most bold hallmarks, from its relentlessly looping rhythms, to its fuzzed out guitars and heavily effected violin wails. "Teas of Na-Ga" brings in guest musician Keisaku Nakamura on piano, the first sign of Capital's broader sound pallet. The song quietly percolates along until the break mid-way in where the piano drops out and things get back to the usual frenetic pace. "Ant's Planet" pushes things into an overtly upbeat direction with, again, a jaunty piano riff, some squelchy synth noise and even a few hand-claps and sampled laughter.
The length of "Epsilon," 10 minutes and 20 seconds, and its proximity to the former peppy and (relatively) short song, should be easily recognized indicators of its corresponding "far out" ness. It is indeed the most free-form and improvisational track on Capitol, and even included another guest musician, Nobuo Ootani, on saxophone. The song does find a sort of coherence near the end as the band starts to gel back together, then again explodes into space at the end. It's also a great lead-in to the final track, a remix of "Ginga no Shasou kara," a song from the band's first release, by Tyme. Unlike so many other remixes, this one doesn't feel tacked on or at all out of place with the rest of the album. It's a muscular, throbbing space-out.
Capital of Gravity shows a band in full control of its skills, as well as its own vision. While the album does breathe a bit more than their previous releases, it is still very much under sgt.'s control. They allow themselves time to explore their own unique sound while still staying within sight of the road they've chosen to take. It's up to you to choose whether or not to follow them down that twisted path.
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