Search - Kadura :: From the Depths of the Other Space

Good ideas but lacks the proper form

drumb | milwaukee, wi United States | 12/16/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"First and foremost, Kadura is not a grindcore act. While some experimentation of the most extreme caliber is interesting and even at times productive, Japan has a history of simply pushing the envelope too far and too often with their incessant stream of increasingly less creative noise acts. With Kadura however, it is a welcome relief to finally see another Japanese band that can master the art of noise within a more intelligent and skill oriented context, an accomplishment I'd previously only seen in my favorite Japanese band Boris. That is not too say that Kadura doesn't draw upon the trademark abrasive-ness that has come to be associated with Japan's cult like music underground, but instead of simply making noise for the sake of making noise, the band intertwines their various repellant soundscapes into grand, extended progressive orchestrations that hold up much better than the typical jumble of painfully sonic tape loops. Although Kadura is perhaps most heavily informed by world music and their style is obviously not of American origins, they still continually bear a striking resemblance to a number of more western musical acts throughout the length of their CD. The reoccurring sheets of flowing feedback sound like they are taken straight from a Sonic Youth song while the band's penchant for complex and moody atmospherics owes much to the pessimistic modern Prog innovators Tool. By mixing the still music oriented theories of western fringe and Prog acts with ideas developed by Japanese noise gurus, Kadura achieves a respectable middle ground that allows them to be sonically destructive without disregarding all notions of songwriting. Unfortunately, the band's execution is where the CD fails to meet its very high goals. All the right elements are definitely there for a brilliant avant-prog album, but the songs themselves tend to become somewhat tedious and are on a whole not particularly engaging to the point where the CD is only interesting on rare occasions. Furthermore, even though the "unique" vocals often lend themselves quite well to the mournful and desperate sound of the album, the singer's voice constantly treads a fine line between sounding emotional and just plain obnoxiously whiny. Kadura seems to have a lot of the right ideas but judging from the songs on "From the Depths of Outer Space," they still have a little ways to go before their sound develops enough to reach its full potential. Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this album, a Boris CD or an early Sonic Youth album is a more enticing substitute, but if you want to hear something challenging and certainly very different sounding, Kadura still makes for a pretty interesting listen."