Disappointing.
Asobi Seksu are a band from New York whose members come from a mixture of Japanese and American backgrounds, take their name from the Japanese for 'playful sex' and sing in both English and Japanese. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2004, and this follow-up, 'Citrus' in 2006 although it only now reaches British shores. The four-piece have drawn comparisons to the shoegaze genre of the late 1980s and early 1990s, although on 'Citrus' their sound has diversified and more straightforward pop and rock influences are frequently apparent.
Opening track 'Everything Is On' serves as a seventeen second opener for 'Strawberries', a light and fluffy track that would certainly be Barbie pink if it had a colour and could not sound out of place on an anime soundtrack. Entirely shallow the song is not, many electronic textures overlay each other and the track has clearly been made with care; although not enough care to ensure that Yuki Chikudate's little-girl-esque vocals can be properly heard over the sound of her backing instruments.
The theme of a singer who cannot be heard is continued in 'New Years', a track which appears full of longing in its guitar-driven opening but soon disintegrates into a mess of random sounds with no recognizable theme, emotion or tune. Sadly disintegration is a running theme as the album progresses, each track being piled so high with instruments, ideas and textures that it is impossible to discern a central aim or emotion. There are some intriguing moments, such as the dreamy choruses of 'Strings' and 'Thursday's stripped back guitar sections, but all too soon they are enveloped by other sounds and lost in the commotion.
'Red Sea' is the most ambitious track on the album, an almost eight minute long epic of which the second half is almost pure experiment with noise. On first listen this may appear intriguing and it's easy to see why some other critics have rated this record highly but objectively it's difficult to imagine anyone wanting to listen to it over and over again; if a track only stands out because of its length that makes quite an obvious point about the state of the album it is on. As 'Citrus' progresses through its thirteen tracks it becomes more and more difficult to separate one track from the next. Slower moments in the form of 'Exotic Animal Paradise' and 'All Through The Night' provide some respite from the constant deluge of sounds but lack the tortured emotional resonance most listeners would excpect from a band inhabiting the genres Asobi Seksu so clearly wish to.
Overall, 'Citrus' suceeds in creating a dreamy shoegaze sound that would not sound out of place on the soundtrack to an American indie movie or Japanese anime, and for that it does deserve praise. Disappointingly however there is something fundamentally dull and emotionless to its sound that soon gets tiresome and prevents this from being an album one can feel excited about. If this is a sound that appeals to your ears, get back to the 1980s and stick on an album by The Chameleons or Kitchens of Distinction – music with lyrics that matter, vocalists you can hear clearly and tracks which sound different to the one preceding them.