Review Summary: Hold the milk—savor the spice while you can.
In their nearly two-decade existence, Ling Tosite Sigure, a post-hardcore three-piece hailing from the Tokyo suburbs, have constructed one of the most unique, unmistakable sounds within their parent genre, but their heat’s an acquired taste. Force down their fusion of hyper-distorted guitar licks and J-pop-adjacent dance grooves and you’ll likely still need a handful more listens to appreciate the group’s vocals, which frequently run the gamut between squeaky falsettos, husky leads, and cornered animal yelps. Language barrier aside (may I interest you in dystopian fiction sprinkled with English loanwords?), Ling’s barrage in abstract is a beast onto itself, catapulting the band from a scrappy indie outfit to cult international acclaim. Their modest fame testifies to how singular they remain in the niche they inhabit, tangibly poppier than the disciples of Swancore, but far too unwieldy to appeal those with a disdain for chaotic dissonance. In their own realm, they know no copycat and fear no predator.
That’s a blessing and curse, though. The free reign they’ve enjoyed has resulted in a laudable career’s worth of records, nearly all roughly as rewarding as the last, but if competition drives innovation, the well of ideas LTS draws from has been on drought notice for quite some time. As early as 2013’s streamlined
i’mperfect, fans noted the band’s formula had grown a little too repetitive for comfort, mitigated somewhat by that record’s concise runtime and hook-driven pursuit, but by 2018’s autopiloted
#5, aggregate opinions were less forgiving. The 2010s also saw two events pivotal to the pigeonholing of Ling’s bombast: signing up as recurring artist for the thriller anime/film series
Psycho-Pass left their lyrical themes permanently monotonous, while the concurrent solo project of band ringleader Toru “TK” Kitajima offered a separate outlet for songwriting deemed “less Ling Tosite Sigure” (though to what extent any of it really is remains contestable). Whatever the case, the dexterous, particularly eclectic zaniness of the band’s earliest work has been ever so slightly watered down since, as has—in a way—their sense of adventure: the riffs still skitter with mechanical distress and their cries still bellow over jolty rhythms and washed-out feedback, but the ferocity of the whirlwind has been less provocative, like backtracking to jalapeños once you’ve worked up tolerance for the habanero.
That in mind, though
last aurorally doesn’t completely regain the Scoville rating of yesteryear, let alone push the band into Carolina Reaper territory, it’s got enough zing to leave newcomers salivating for more. Its opening run of “Super Sonic Aurorally,” “Tatsumaite Sennou,” and “Marvelous Persona” is textbook Ling Tosite Sigure for anyone eager for an appetizer before the main dish; this trio of tracks embodies the band’s melodic sensibilities, jagged licks, and pummeling drive, the platonic ideal of anyone this late into their career doing the same ol’ same ol’. Matters get stranger later on; the siren SFX of “laser beamer” and the tormented breakdowns of “Perfake Perfect” are properly otherworldly, akin to screeching ghosts haunting the hottest raves in town. The catch? These two tracks and “Neighbormind,” predate
last aurorally’s press cycle as standalone singles, so the only knuckle-ball left for diehards to discover is “Alexithymiaspare,” a mathy, scatterbrained romp near the record’s center melting shoegazey riffs, acoustic plucking, and throttling breakdowns into a zesty soup that’ll leave fans grinning from ear to ear and the uninitiated sprinting for the nearest glass of capsaicin-muting milk.
It’s a little concerning that it’s the only functionally new stunner, as half the record was available before its actual release, signaling that the five years of downtime since
#5 didn’t produce as many ideas as hoped. Unlike the fresh opener, “self-hacking” is a dud among the newest stuff, TK adopting his least charming mannerisms over a paint-by-numbers instrumental, while capping it all off, “Metsubou craft” is the record’s sole slower, softer, more patient track, aiming for a similar role as
Inspiration is DEAD’s “Yuukei no Kioku” or
i’mperfect’s “Missing Ling,” but not quite reaching the intensity of either, cutting the record’s climax a hair short of what the band ought to still be able to muster.
All this to say
last aurorally sure is another Ling Tosite Sigure album, but at this point the notion of reinvention seems erased from the drawing board, so the expectations need to shift as well. If the band can at least churn out a sufficient sizzler of their established trademarks, they’ll have a seat at the table for as long as there are virgin ears stumbling upon them for the first time. If you’re still one,
last aurorally isn’t necessarily a poor place to start. As for the rest of us, its hesitant crawl in the right direction underlies their frustrating resistance to change. Any future Ling material, including this, could constitute their last stroke of ingenuity—don’t take the panting, flushed tingle it provides for granted.
