EP REVIEW: The Three Faces Of Beauty: A Violent Misinterpretation Of Morgan Montgomery – Kaonashi
Not many bodies of music tell a good story quite as well as a properly thought out and planned concept album, although sometimes they come out feeling like they’ve been written by a brand new fanfiction author; KAONASHI haven’t fallen down that manhole. Their new EP, first in the series of three, The Three Faces Of Beauty: A Violent Misinterpretation Of Morgan Montgomery sets out to look at themes of race, homophobia and family through the lens of fictional character Morgan Montgomery.
When you’re listening to this introduction to the series of EPs you should be feeling nothing but boiling anger, a burgeoning excitement and love for KAONASHI. They’re weird and wonderful with gripping tracks that brand their sentiments into your memories. Humiliation Ritual follows a story of deeply rooted anxiety and fear – of living. It’s a detailed account of the stress of walking down the street that a young black person can feel, and in Morgan Montgomery’s case the way that it overruns their life, being consumed by fear and seeing that white people wrongly fear them for the colour of their skin.
Morgan Montgomery as a character and their identity is at an intersection where blackness and queerness meet; Sarah & The Scraped Knee is the summation of the complications that arise of being black and queer for Morgan. “The sound of my mom straight up crying in my ear cause the worst thing her Black son could do is be weird. Or queer.” vividly pierces through the ever changing mathcore and Peter Rono’s frantic yelps. KAONASHI have found the perfect sound to narrate the endlessly complex labyrinth of emotion that they build the EP around.
Down to the song titles this EP is put together in such a way that alludes to little details that you’ll pick up later on whilst listening; I Hate The Sound Of Car Keys feels consequently synonymous with someone entering the house and your soft belly filling with despair, tensing up. Exit PT. V reaches a self-destructive boiling point, where queer shame bubbles over the top and has nowhere left to go except escape from Rono’s mouth. Each subsequent lyric lays the path for the next, full of anguish and desire to simply not feel like an inconvenience for being a certain way.
Not just tear-jerking or heart-string pulling, but a violent stream of tears that cannot be stopped whilst gasping for proper air as the contents of this EP gather at one point to weigh you down at their meeting points. If you’ve ever been called a f*****, puff, or someone of the same gender has ever said “as long as you don’t try it on with me” just for being queer, listen to this EP and the following sequels. Scream KAONASHI’s name until your throat runs raw with queer joy, because everything they’ve created in five songs is there to chop down a stigma. Thank you KAONASHI for your unapologetic vulnerability, catharsis and the violence that you delivered it in. White queers take note, we won’t ever be in those shoes and it isn’t the same for us, we have a privilege. Alternative scenes still aren’t safe for queer, black, brown, or trans people, but this band have just made it that bit easier. There’s not enough words to express what they have done.
Rating: 10/10
The Three Faces Of Beauty: A Violent Misinterpretation Of Morgan Montgomery is out now via Equal Vision Records.
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