Review Summary: Asleep at the wheel.
It didn’t have to be this way; when Mouse on the Keys first took the musical underground by semi-algorithmic storm, the trio’s dutifully orchestrated patchwork of nu-jazz, post-rock, and math-
whatever posed them at the vanguard of Japan’s instrumental avant-rock boom. Among laudable contemporaries like Toe, LITE, Jizue, and Té, Mouse on the Keys’ core chemistry was unique: the band consisted of two piano virtuosos and a drummer who workshopped his chops on hardcore punk. Studio guests helped flesh out their sound, but the unending interplay and counterintuitive contrast between their central components was their calling card and easiest sell: their debut
An Anxious Object ought to go down as one of the best jazz-
ish records of the 21st century. Eventual follow-up
The Flowers of Romance largely solidified the act’s legacy as more than a one-album wonder.
Still, how’s that line go? “Evolution is inevitable; stagnation is a choice?” 2018’s
Tres saw the group take a huge stylistic leap that didn’t commercially pan out, even if its assemblage of guest voices and toned-down tempos kept their creative flame intact. That record was straightforward, but scatterbrained, a real grab bag where the band tried stroking hues of sultry R&B, ambient music, and their prior bread and butter to mixed but occasionally spellbinding results. Even when its ideas flopped, they felt like proper missed swings, earned failures from overstepping their comfort zone. Since then, it’s ironically been a less fulfilling journey: things really began going awry once founding pianist Atsushi Kiyota was replaced by Takumi Shiroeda in 2022, and last year’s industrial-themed
Pointillism (a release destined for LP/EP discourse purgatory) nervously indicated the once-dynamic gravity of the band's arrangements might be counting its last days.
If I wanted to be cruel, I could summarize
Midnight as all of
Tres and
Pointillism's missteps with none of their perks, but I like to think I’m a generous listener, and scouting positives allowed me to arrive at this read:
Midnight sort of functions as an experiment with negative space. It’s the logical destination of Mouse on the Keys’ sporadically pertinent excursions into ambient music and uncannily sterile electronica, and true to form, it lives and breathes the same specter of brutalist architecture and stark, grayscale abstraction that their entire discography does, albeit spread far too thin and bearing nary a surprise to qualify as an exciting step for an act whose restlessness was once so pivotal to their being that it inspired their very name.
Hell, for all I can tell, Akira Kawasaki could’ve been replaced by machine here, and the band’s use of AI videography doesn’t do their visual aesthetic any favors either; the drummer’s precise performances on percussion-heavy moments like “Fail Better” and “The Dawn” sound deprived of human pulse, and for roughly half the record he might as well not even exist. “24:59” and “Two Five” are nearly unlistenable, splattered by Loraine James’ stilted, mechanical muttering. Most of the remaining tracks are liminal voids at best. If
Midnight has anything akin to a genuine highlight, it’s “One Last Time” or the title track—chamber-synth mood pieces so drenched in depressive ephemera they don the album’s flat raison d’être as a reward onto itself. In some small doses, the notion works.
It's clear enough that such a bleak atmosphere was the goal for
Midnight overall: “creatively bankrupt” isn’t an accurate description here, as Mouse on the Keys so evidently set their sights on channeling the nocturnal kenopsia of inter-genre greats as far ranging as Godspeed and Burial. “Thoroughly underwhelming” is the fairer conclusion: longtime fans have heard
Midnight’s essence distilled in Mouse interludes past, and unlike those segues—specifically designed to transition between moods or serve as reprieves—there exists no point A or B to this album’s monotonous, muted venture. It sweats dust. It bleeds plastic. It’s simultaneously oppressive and detached; ever-looming yet immaterial. Beyond the contradictions inherent to its resulting timbre, there’s little of note to see here and even less you’ll feel inclined to revisit. Mouse on the Keys sound asleep at the wheel. I can only pray they wake up before they run out of road.
