In certain math rock-friendly circles, toe need no introduction, but for the uninitiated: the Japanese band formed in 2000 and they went on to become one of the niche subgenre’s most widely-loved and longest-running bands. They gradually started leaving their footprint on the US scene throughout the 2000s, leading up to a 2009 split EP with Milwaukee’s Collections of Colonies of Bees (the same year members of that band teamed up with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon for their debut album as Volcano Choir), and in 2013, they signed to US label Topshelf to reissue material stateside and they went on their first North American tour.
2015 saw the release of their first new album for Topshelf, Hear You, and now they release their first album since then (and first new music since 2018’s Our Latest Number EP), Now I See the Light. It delivers a mix of complex guitar/drum patterns, twinkling bells, and bright vocal melodies that make for some of the band’s most gorgeous songs yet. It shares as much DNA with fellow math rock bands as it does with the beautiful delicacy of Sigur Rós, and it also scratches a similar itch for me as LP3-era American Football. It’s a good reminder that technical music and pretty music can be one and the same.
Listen:
Tracklist
風と記憶
LONELINESS WILL SHINE
TODO Y NADA
街のどこかで
WHO KNOWS ?
CLOSE TO YOU
キアロスクーロ
サニーボーイ・ラプソディ
MADNESS SUMMER
NOW I SEE THE LIGHT