Review Summary: Floating World, the first full album released by the Chicago band, inspired by a Japanese fairy tale, listens like a fairy tale, a symphonic experience supernatural in its brilliance.
Hailing from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, this 8+ member band, most of whom are capable on more then one instrument, have created a masterpiece of an album that really is like no other. Anathallo had released several overlooked EPs before, but Floating World was its first full-length album.
It sounds like a symphony, it feels like a theater production, a musical, some wild tribal chant. It's filled with wild horn blasts, erratic vocal lines, shouting voices, mallet percussion, banging pianos, and much more. There are mixed meters, post rock crescendos, and mixed in with it there is real passion in every song.
"Ame", the first track, opens with a single chord crescendoing beneath clickety percussion, transitioning pleasantly into the second song, "Genessaret". "Genessaret" begins with soft guitar plunky and hushed vocals. Then mallet percussion enters, soft backup vocals sing harmonies that weave around the melody. Then dark piano and drum hits become audible beneath it all. Each song builds like a hurricane, picking up speed as it comes toward you; it suddenly flies at you and bowls you over, and when you cautiously regain your footing it slams you down again.
Perhaps the most acclaimed and enjoyable track on the album is "Hoodwink". It begins with the horns and guitar before slowing into a vocal and piano laden verse. Then it adds in hand claps for a soft refrain with vocal harmonies. Suddenly there's a violent bassline propelling the song forwards, and it crescendos into a post-rock worthy climax, without losing the groove thats resonating inside you throughout the song.
My personal favorite track is the fourth part of "Hanasakajijii" (a Japanese story), whose parts appear out of chronology on the album. The song tumbles around before resting on a part with hummed vocals and a catchy harmony on bells and piano. Then it builds to the end where the piano playing becomes more hectic, horns are blasting and there's an abundance of snare.
Floating World is a work of unbridled creative genius. The lyrics are a blend of Japanese culture and Biblical stories which create a creative conceptual work of art. The music is convulsive, paroxysmal, but at the same time softly enchanting. Every song is beautiful and aesthetically pleasing in a unique way, and together they make a masterpiece of an album.
