Recitation

There surely have been numerous fraught discussions on where Envy fall with regard to genre tags. It's time to give it up. The two-decade career of the Japanese quintet has been marked by cinematic melodies and crashing distortion -- there's never been a need to understand what precisely Tetsuya Fukagawa bellows in his scratching scream or spoken word bridges. Envy's just beautiful. True power.
The last few years have pointed to Envy being in transition and experimenting, as their split releases with Jesu and Thursday displayed more theories than song. But all has fallen into place on 'Recitation,' as the songs act more as movements in a Victorian poem where one song follows a traditional rock structure, and another (like 'Last Hours of Eternity') catapults the ambient moments into torture. As expected, some songs break the eight-minute mark, but some are cut to fit into 90 seconds.
Beginning on Sept. 25 Envy will begin a U.S. tour that will share stages with Touche Amore, And So I Watch You From Afar and Trash Talk.
'Recitation' is due out on Oct. 12 via Temporary Residence.