Review Summary: please say sike...
Reviewing Kaonashi’s now third album
I Want To Go Home feels a bit like explaining to your partner why it bothers you that they never do the dishes two years after you caught them cheating. The real issue isn’t a secret, but you talk around it to keep the peace and avoid being called petty in hopes the glare dims a bit. Anyway,
I Want To Go Home sees the band really settle into the niche they’ve created in anomalous sasscore space, and showcases all the genre-hopping and lyrical world-building the group has been building towards for a few years. Unfortunately, there’s not one aspect of
I Want To Go Home that feels like more than a cursory thought went towards its inception or execution. From beginning to end,
I Want To Go Home is a sophomoric mess of ideas haphazardly tossed together and explained away via the convenient prop of experimentalism. Musically, Kaonashi traverse a ton of ground on
I Want To Go Home, from deathcore, to early 2000’s Senses Fail worship, to emo, metalcore and more, all while using what amounts to a rusty nail gun in stitching these passages and ideas together. The flippancy of the musicality shows itself early and often, with songs frequently coming to almost a complete stop before switching to whatever genre comes up on the spinning wheel, resulting in a discordant and jarring experience that could be described as genre-hopping but would be more accurately described as lazy. There are more than a few good ideas on
I Want To Go Home however, if due to nothing else than the sheer amount of ideas present. The simple riff on J.A.I.M.E for example is extremely effective in the context of the song and is a very easy highlight of the album before Anthony Green (probably as a favor to Equal Vision) tosses out the most trite and tired verse of his career. “When I Say” strikes a good balance between nostalgia bait mixed with the group’s distinctive sound that showcases the album’s most catchy hook by far. There is an undeniable technical ability within sections of
I Want To Go Home that, while sparse, serve as brief respites for the listening journey throughout.
But let’s be honest, the cheating happened.
The real issue with
I Want To Go Home and really the band’s entire output, is that Kaonashi are relying heavily on a gimmick, Peter Rono’s vocals. The man’s unique delivery and sound serve as both the foundation of the band’s success as well as the ceiling of which they will never break through. There’s no end to the descriptors that can be attributed to what is essentially Rono loudly squawking at the listener for much of the record and even though Rono does employ a few other delivery styles at points, he knows where his bread is buttered. Ostensibly,
I Want To Go Home is trying to convey a sense of grief, loss, and pain throughout its runtime but Kaonashi forgets presentation, while not everything, still matters. When going full boar, Rono’s cries completely chew the scene, robbing any sort of emotion, weight, or depth from the tracks. This is most typified in “Fairmount Park After Dark” and “Slower Forms of Suicide,” two microcosms of the failures of
I Want To Go Home. Both songs dully trudge along while approaching what is supposed to be a crescendo, only instead of the cathartic payoff, Rono rewards listeners by belting out a breathy shriek so shrill and off pitch the timing of it all can best be described as parody.
I Want To Go Home is full of these moments, and while the music itself shines in comparison, it’s not interesting enough (perhaps by design) to take the spotlight away from the gimmick. As a result,
I Want To Go Home is an aimless bore, largely devoid of good musical design, and about as experimental as a 12 year old at the movies showing their friends how they filled their cup with four different sodas. Don’t bother.
