Tricot, a three-piece math-rock outfit from Kyoto, Japan, are a difficult nut to crack. Part noise-merchants, part indie-pop cutesters, and part chin-scratching math-rockers, the band provides a dense sound that has found a worldwide audience, and, unsurprisingly, critical acclaim, since the band formed 2010. Over the course of their last 2 albums, The and A N D, they have wowed with ultra-tight musicianship and effortless pop sensibilities. Hopefully it’s a hattrick with 3.
The band kick off the album in a typically dense fashion with ‘Tokyo Vampire Hotel’, leaving little time for the listener to get comfortable. A short drum solo gives way to math-rock riffing with an almost punk energy. While the chorus still, somewhat incredibly, provides enough traditional melody to anchor to song, the instrumentation is certifiably insane.
This combination of instrumental chaos anchored by vocal beauty is the foundation of 3’s precision sound, and your appreciation of it is integral to your enjoyment of what it has to offer. While the rest of the album very rarely lurches for the jugular like ‘Tokyo Vampire Hotel’, this release sits somewhere between technically marvelous and exhaustively overwhelming. This perhaps best exemplified on tracks such as the absolutely bonkers ‘Namu’, which contrasts a low, lolloping bassline with a high pitched vocal refrain of “namu-namu-namu-namu-namu-namu-namu”. Meanwhile, ‘Setsuyakuka’ provides a relentless assault of colliding riffs that rarely pauses to take a breather.
This isn’t to say that 3 is completely devoid of dynamics. If nothing else, Tricot are a trio that are absolutely bristling with ideas. Take ‘Yosoiki’ for example, a song with a lead riff that seems to be taken straight out of Nile Roger’s playbook, while bassist Hiromi “Hirohiro” Sagane gives a positively soulful performance. On ‘Sukima’, the band slow it down to a simple kick-and-a-snare drum pattern and an incredibly soft spoken vocal performance, while there’s even a doo-wop influence buried within ‘Munasawagi’. Tricot have been playing together since school, and their ability to throw in influences from seemingly wherever they like is a testament to how well the band have gelled over their 7 year career.
3 is a math-rock fans wet dream, but an impenetrable nightmare to a less discerning listener. Tricot have honed in their sound to absolute precision. Its busy, beautiful, dense, and confusing. 3 will have fans smiling from ear-to-ear, but new comers may have a hard time getting to grips with Tricot’s wonderfully insane vision of math/noise/pop.
