Let me start by saying that, if you’re into good hardcore and haven’t heard of Kaonashi, you’re missing out. The Philadelphia based five-piece brought their second full-length record to our ears a few months ago. Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year sees the band maturing in a lot of ways and finding their voice with focus and clarity.
Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year is a finely cut collection of sounds, which shows us that Kaonashi is capable of a tightly knit and cohesive manner of expositing their ideas. The record manages to traverse widely between mathcore and post-hardcore with a progressive mindset and a highly emotional approach.
Although, stylistically, the album doesn’t simply make a checkbox out of the above, it seeks to bring an organic sonic unity which is equally pissed off, anxious, and wistful (in a sense). The mathcore element is the most traditionally explored and delivered part, but it’s clearly done with a lot of personality. The chaotic nature of it is toned down compared to other representatives of the sound, in favor of a more calculated impact, while remaining just as hard hitting. It does however maintain the savagery which is all too characteristic for the vocal performance, which reaches into frantic and crazed territories.
I feel like the post-hardcore side of things retains the most in terms of the band’s personality, as it’s coming across from the tunes themselves to me, the listener. It holds an intense emotive charge, which is unleashed step by step along the way, up to the very end of the trip. It also makes things more engaging and especially more immersive, creating a more personal bridge between the listener and the sonic contents.
This element is also performed in a way that doesn’t immediately resemble its contemporaries, which offers it a fresh feeling, as well as a unique character. The focus seems to be on a dramatic take of this atmospheric tinge, which eventually envelops the entirety of the journey. This ties in very well with the highly anxious concept and content of the lyrics, as well as their raw and matter-of-fact style which lands in the teen angst area of things. Presently, I don’t really relate in any capacity to that side of things, although I’m sure that my fifteen-year-old self would’ve been seen eating from the palm of this record.
The progressive mindset behind the record makes the transitions from the very headbangable riffs and the utterly visceral segments to the pensive, soft, and almost intimate parts feel quite natural in spite of the fact that some of them may be executed in a technically brusque manner. The production and ultimately the presentation of the whole affair is rather rough and raw, a thing which I’m not that much into personally, but it does complement the action well and it can’t be faulted for not doing a proper job.
Ultimately, even if I’d say that Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year felt a pinch dragged out to me, it’s definitely a solid record and it shows us that Kaonashi are a promising band which should be on your radar if you’re into this kind of stuff.
