Review Summary: Reminiscences
Avalanche in Kyoto is a progressive metalcore band from – despite what their name might lead you to believe – Chile, and not Japan. The band communicates exclusively in Spanish, which is a language I don't understand (I failed Spanish 1 four times in my undergrad English curriculum before the university took pity on me and gave me an exemption from the foreign language requirement), and thus I have very little foreground information to provide. After a two-track single in 2020, the band released their debut
Reminiscencias in 2021 – an EP which frankly speaks more for the band than a biography could anyway. While Avalanche in Kyoto doesn't quite tread any new ground musically in
Reminiscencias, they excel greatly in providing a more heartening brand of progcore, which I feel has been absent from the genre since the disbandment of The Afterimage.
The guitars on
Reminiscencias are technical, treble-heavy, and oftentimes sparkly even when the rhythm section is doing what they're known for in any -core genre. Occasionally during and between riffs, there are short, ambient synth-passages that the lead guitarist also enjoys gliding along with. The vocalist shows great range in his screams, as well as a respectable display in his clean vocals during choruses. Altogether, these elements are fused into a tight, twenty-minute package of passionate progcore that will leave fans of the genre wanting more.
If there's one thing that separates Avalanche in Kyoto from any other progcore band I've discovered to date, it's their willingness to sing lyrics exclusively in a language that is not English. There have been progcore bands that have come from countries where English is not the primary language before (Novelists [France] and Earthists [Japan] are the two that immediately come to mind), but since the progcore fanbase chiefly exists in the west, these bands have opted to write lyrics either mostly or entirely in English. Avalanche in Kyoto instead sticks to what they're comfortable with (and we can't assume they know how to write and speak English anyway), and as a result, I, as a native English-speaker, get to hear the curious and wonderful ruminations of a language I couldn't get the grasp of learning, in one of my favorite genres of music.
