Active for over thirty two years now, Japanese post-hardcore legends envy have honed their craft for a cult fanbase. Depending on who you ask they’re considered a heavily influential band in screamo, post-hardcore and post-rock circles. Their blend of white hot post-hardcore and delicate post-rock auras has been a staple since 1998’s From Here to Eternity, being early adopters of stark textural differences. After a lineup shakeup and the return of their original frontman Tetsuya Fukagawa, envy went on to craft 2020’s excellent The Fallen Crimson, looking back more on their screamo past with a fresh lineup and returning members whilst furthering their exploration of post-rock spaces. Now they’re back with Eunoia, refusing to rest on their laurels and planted forward facing confronting the future.
One of the primary focus’ with Eunoia was to only write material they would be able to replicate in a live environment; the band’s ambitions have often exceeded their live capabilities with complex arrangements. Even with those understandable limitations, envy still create vast compositions with plenty of emotional depth. Introductory track ‘Piecemeal’ sets the stage with atmospheric guitars stirring to life and spoken word vocals read like excepts from diary entries setting an intimate stage before fully blooming with ‘Imagination and Creation’. It makes for the perfect showcase of what makes envy themselves, a cohesive blend of infectious melodies scored over the top of frenetic blast beats, post-hardcore intensity and shoegaze inspired walls of noise. It’s a blistering introduction that is a perfect reminder of how powerful the band are when they’re firing on all cylinders.
The band step into full post-rock worship with ‘The Night and the Void’, weaving between grandiose post-rock melodies and delicate emotional frailty. It could have been ripped straight out of a MONO album but punctuated by Fukagawa’s very personal vocal delivery. Similarly, ‘Beyond The Raindrops’ touches some different ground, opening with a moody symphonic key refrain before sprouting into soul-stirring shoegaze. The juxtaposition between the somber refrain reflecting a sad reality and the uplifting beauty of the Shelter era Alcest feeling shoegaze makes for an incredible cathartic emotional outburst. Despite exploring greater ambient territory, ‘Whiteout’ is still worked in as the quintessential post-hardcore throwback. Thunderous drum fills make way for angular staccato chord strikes, dissonant melodic runs and agonised vocals. It scratches that post-hardcore itch with undiluted emotional turmoil and release.
This contrast is at the core of the album, with envy written around searching for hope and inspiration from day to day life whilst feeling powerless against the weight of the world. It is remarkable that the band continue to push themselves into new territories this far into their career, without losing touch of their past. No matter which genre the band lean into across Eunoia, it sounds simply divine, the album’s production sitting on par with the high quality that is found throughout most of envy’s discography. Expansive detail and clarity in the delivery of all the instrumentals and vocals ensures the band sound as good as possible.
‘Lingering Light’ and ‘Lingering Echoes’ are two sides of the same coin, feeling like a two part track and continuing to hammer in the contrast the band have sewn throughout the album. The former is a little more experimental; moody tones and electronic drums simmer tension with spoken vocals adding to the unease. The latter brings in more traditional instrumentation, but continues to revel in the gloom, using more dramatic staccato to build intensity and giving way to expansive spaces. Finally, album closer ‘January’s Dusk’ brings back one last grandiose post-rock composition, envy take their time building to the final climax with the longest track on the album. It maintains a mid-tempo pace as to not let the album’s flow hit a brick wall at the final stretch and further develops the expansive beauty for an emotionally charged finale.
With envy’s compositional ambitions growing over previous releases, regularly hitting around an hour, its refreshing to have a more streamlined and focused effort. Eunoia stands out as the shortest release in their catalogue at just over half an hour (though it’s not far off their legendary 1998 full length debut From Here To Eternity). Yet somehow even with the shortened run time they pack a lot of quality in and tick all the boxes envy fans love. Eunoia is another stellar release in the band’s catalogue and continues to cement their legacy in the alternative space. No matter how dark and gloomy some of the atmospheres lean at times, there is always rays of hope painted in the mire.