For decades, the Japanese band Envy has specialized in a heart-surging sound that doesn’t belong to any particular genre. Envy started out as a hardcore band before moving into a vast, expressive hybrid style that combined black metal scraggle-roar, shoegaze whoosh, and post-rock tingle. They’re often credited with inventing the blackgaze subgenre, but it seems like they did that entirely by accident. And while many bands have tried to adapt Envy’s style, nobody does it like Envy themselves. They’re still doing it, too.
Today, Envy have fallowed up their gorgeous 2020 album The Fallen Crimson with a new three-song EP called Seimei — Japanese for Life. Like Envy’s 2018 release Alnair In August, Seimei feels like something bigger than a stopgap, even if it’s not a full album. (Chris Taylor, of screamo greats Pg. 99 and Terminal Bliss, did the cover art for both EPs.) The three songs on Seimei aren’t all that long, especially by Envy standards, but they evoke big feelings. Once you hit play, you’re in their world. We’ve already posted the title track, and now you can hear the full EP below.
Seimei is out now on Temporary Residence.
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