Some thoughts on “chimera”, the recent digital EP from INUWASI.
Release Date: August 30th 2021
Serial Number: N/A
Format: Digital
Tracklist
1. setsuna
2. Israfil
3. monotonous
4. Darkness
5. Reimei no sora
6. Axenxion
Stream: Here
To be totally honest, I’ve never really been quite sure what to make of INUWASI. In the lead-up and during the group’s debut I thought they had some pretty cool branding and a cool look but they were a far cry from the usual sort of groups that Maple Records had been putting out. Nothing wrong with trying something different of course and in examples like MELiSSA it has worked out quite well even but to see where INUWASI started from and where they are now just leaves me scratching my head a bit.
Gone are the harsh vocals, dark costumes and such and in their place is a group is quite a bit more conventionally Idol by most people’s standards. They haven’t gone full Royal Road or anything quite like that but something definitely changed at some point and I guess we’re probably never going to know just what exactly that was but usual sort of inside baseball type stuff is probably a fairly safe guess. That’s not what we’re really here to talk about anyway.
By the time you all are reading this INUWASI will have released a new album so I’m kinda playing catch-up with them a bit right now and decided to ease into it with a listen of their “chimera” EP that came out towards the end of the summer there. Rock with some synthy, Electronica elements seems to be where the group is generally at these days so I was expecting a bit of that here and then maybe an ancillary genre or two to add a bit of extra spice to things. I’m not a huge follower of the group by any means though so those assumptions could have ended up being pretty off-base now that I think about it.
“chimera” is a somewhat odd release on the whole, and I suppose this might just be a comment on INUWASI in general, because while many of the tracks punch pretty hard from an instrumental standpoint the vocals never quite rise to meet them. Don’t get me wrong, the performances are very bright and melodic broadly speaking but there isn’t enough of a cutting edge to them and it leaves the tracks feeling a bit weak as a result. That’s the impression I got while listening to this EP at least and I don’t know, it could just be a production thing but I can only speak for what I heard and every vocal track on this release is lacking that extra “oomf” for me.
That being said, the instrumentation is incredibly solid up and down the EP and yeah it is pretty much the synthesizer assisted Rock theme that I was expecting but INUWASI take that in several different directions and it feels like there’s a good variety of styles at play here. “Israfil” and “Darkness” are my personal favorites instrumentally from the release due to their high tension and grit but if you’re into more synthesizer based stuff then several of the other tracks should be right up your alley in that regard I think.
I leave “chimera” with mixed emotions but I suppose that’s how a lot of people I know feel about INUWASI these days so maybe that’s not such a weird feeling after all. Musically I get what the group is going for, and though it’s a bit different than the idea we were all originally sold on I can definitely see a lot of positives to take from their current musical direction. I really don’t like harping on vocals too much these days but that is the biggest disconnect right now for me and several others and I don’t know how or if there is even much of an appetite to change that on the group’s side.
That being said, I’ll probably still check out the album that INUWASI just dropped a couple of weeks ago and see what that’s all about. I’d imagine several tracks from this release will likely crop up there too and that’s cool. I do want to like the group and their music, and while I wouldn’t say I particularly dislike anything they’re doing I still feel like it hasn’t quite clicked with me just yet so further listening would appear to be the order of the day. Time will tell so stay tuned for the next one folks.
