ALBUM REVIEW: Chaos // Despair – Yatin Srivastava Project
Indian guitarist Yatin Srivastava has delivered his first full length album, Chaos//Despair in collaboration with various artists, including Craig Blundell (drummer for Steven Wilson) and Bruce Soord (THE PINEAPPLE THIEF) as well as Indian artists Dhruv Visvanath, Kunal Singh, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya and Arjun Mathur that all come under the banner of the YATIN SRIVASTAVA PROJECT. Taking on board difficult themes, the album hopes to bring to light issues of mental health, loss, political disarray, and much more, all through a sonic lens.
We begin with Alive, which opens with some beautifully dissonant progression between the chords and the riff, one melodically mystic, the other heavy and low. The display of the vocals compliments the overall sound pretty well, but the real impressive elements are within the flow and dynamics on offer. There’s something of DEVIN TOWNSEND in the heavier turns on this track, but the majority builds itself into something complex, yet not filled with darkness or anger, but more a weaving of intricate ideas that all appear just at the right moment.
Ozone starts on a far more acoustic, stripped down note, and layering in a much more folk, etherical drum tone, and very low-key guitars. Vocally, this track is much more fitting to the sound the rest of the track is going for. For fans of VOLA you will find there to be some great experimenting with ideas and techniques, plenty of synth sounds under the running melody and interesting structural movements. By half way through the track, it’s a completely different beast from where it started, and you’ll be hard pressed to hear exactly where that change all comes about. Some whacky little moments within this track keep the dark parts from dominating too much and it’s a very well balanced track; however, the GOJIRA-esque ending really doesn’t feel like it belongs on this track at all, it very much feels like it’s been tagged on because there was no other place for it on the album.
Congizance has yet another clear vocal start with some quiet guitars echoing behind the words. The vocals from Aranya Sahay really brings some spirit with his strong voice over the soaring guitars. The synth on this is has so much to offer, not to mention the very robotic throws of vocals that are almost inaudible. There are so many styles going on here, that its easy to pick out some inflections of MASTODON,with a solid helping of blues, perhaps something a little djent, but overall the feeling from this track is very much grounded in the roots of the composition, feeling superbly orchestral across the board.
This concludes the first half of the album, that the YATIN SRIVASTAVA PROJECT has sighted as covering the theme of chaos. There’s obvious lyrical nods to this, be it within modernity, religion or personal life, but thinking more abstractly, the idea is much more celestial here within the actual sounds of the songs, the overlaying, the constant changes between genres and styles, the mesh of ideas, some that pay off and really work, some that are fun and whimsical, and some that lead to very dark places.
The Unknown begins the latter half the album, dealing more directly with the idea of despair. Opening on a very serene piano piece, it’s an evocative piece that holds both tonal notes of joy and melancholy. The very deliberate use of symbols and guitars, all building the piece into the introduction of the vocals is very well put together, and the female vocals really compliment this intoxicating, mystical sounding track. You’re never sure what you’ll hear in this one; wisps of electronic compression, intricate moments between bass notes and drums, change into a more full-bodied guitar sound. The overall scope on offer here is very impressive, it’s a truly contemplative effort.
Program.Obsolete is, again, a very ethereal, quiet start, drums beating low and mellow, guitars singing high but smoothly, in a warm melody that envelops. Again, another vocal change back to clean male. Then, like a welcome storm, the music thickens in the air around you, it develops into something bigger, more turbulent and opulent. It’s a great piece of musical commentary that you can really interpret in such a variety of ways. The many ideas each musician has contributed to this track are all complex in their own way, sometimes becoming autonomous and to the rest of the track, for all for a moment, before harmonising with the greater work. It’s a mostly instrumental piece, and the array of workings within it, it’s all the better for understanding when to include it’s vocals and when to let the rest of the piece breathe.
Forgotten takes a very sombre look at the feeling of despair, of loneliness and growing uncertainty. Of all the tracks, it’s the hardest hitting because of it’s truly low emotional feeling, the haunting of the arrangements. It’s a very sobering track, and while it really deals with the issues that the YATIN SRIVASTAVA PROJET appears to be addressing, it’s so much lower in it’s tone than anything else on this record. While this is naturally obvious, and in regards to capturing that feeling, it does so well. Still filled with great compositional scope, and lead mainly by a triumphant vocal performance, nonetheless, it never gets itself off the ground as much as the other songs on the record.
To take the album’s name, Chaos // Despair, as a metaphor for the way this album works, you can imagine the chaos of growth in the music and the despair within the lyrics, yet from this entanglement we have truly a solid album. There is rarely a dull moment, and a true variety of dynamics and styles is very refreshing and enjoyable. Occasionally the scope of each track runs away with itself, and ideas and motifs could have maybe been saved for a second album, rather than squandering them in moments that are a little too short to really enjoy what’s going on. Regardless, what has been achieved by the YATIN SRIVASTAV PROJECT here is a great interpretation of some big themes many will connect with and relish in it’s intricacies.
Rating: 8/10
Chaos// Despair is out now via self-release.
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