Depending on who you ask, post rock peaked somewhere between 2000 and 2005, between the releases of Lift Yr Skinny Fists like Antennae to Heaven and The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place. The grumpiest purists will point to this era of cinematic crescendocore as the platonic ideal of the genre and dismiss all else as either too derivative or not derivative enough.
Personally, I’ve never been one to buy into that sort of halcyon editorializing. There’s been too much great post rock in the last two decades to dismiss it. However, there’s something about Neko Nine’s Isola grabs the intricate beauty of early 00s post rock and bends it to its will.
It’s been a long time since Amsterdam’s Neko Nine has been active. After forming by Seva Shaposhnikov as a solo project in 2009, the line up grew to a five-piece before they released their debut full length in 2012. After touring for a few years, the project took a hiatus in 2015.
On Isola, Shaposhnikov once again finds himself as the sole member of Neko Nine—which makes the title (translated as “Island”) especially fitting. But you wouldn’t know by the songs on this disc, which are lush and massive, utilizing interwoven layers of electric guitar, wordless choral vocals, driving drum parts dancing around intricate electronic beats, pianos and synths, occasional flourishes of strings and woodwind (I believe that’s a pan flute in the title track), and, yes, massive climaxes of distorted guitar and crashing cymbals. Many of the tracks were born out of demos recorded during the full-band era of the project, and the live chemistry they had still translates, even when put to tape by Seva alone.
The album seems to exist between two poles, with the delicate electronic-tinged atmospherics of The Album Leaf on one side and more metallic-leaning acts like If These Trees Could Talk and Shy, Low on the other. On one end, you have tracks like “Numbers and Bones” and “Snowflakes Gone Gray” with their guitar melodies accompanied by lush strings, glockenspiel, and glitchy drum machines. On the other, you have muscular tracks like “The Only Home We’ve Ever Known” and “Frost Giants,” which have little concern for subtlety.
Both extremes of the spectrum are wonderful, and there’s some real magic that happens as the record moves between them, shifting moods and dynamics on a dime. But the record truly culminates with closer “Wolves.” Amid twinkling piano and synth pads, the only lyrics on the entire album emerge between some of the most powerful climaxes on the record. It’s a surprising moment, but delightfully so.
It’s a triumphant return to a long dormant project. But with this sort of grandeur, Neko Nine’s history is more of a footnote. Isola is a massive statement in its own right. And if any grumpy post rock bros give it a fair shot, maybe they’ll shut up about 2003.
Isola is out July 22 on Friend Club Records.
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