Anamanaguchi – Anyway | Album Review
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Polyvinyl Record Co.
The ground is firmly under your feet. Your gaze rises to greet an open street lined with trees and grass and apartment complexes that are knotted like corridors of a maze. The wind is warm and breezing past you as you trek one leg in front of the other. The sound of footfalls to the left and right let you know that your best friends in the whole world are right by your side. These are relationships forged across God-knows-how-many dreary hours of school, eyes aching in anticipation of the clock chiming the hour of freedom, releasing you into countless untold adventures through backyards, pools, and playgrounds throughout the summer months. A sense of wonder and excitement begins to bloom in your chest, and you can’t help but think, “I wonder what’s next?”
Whatever Anamanaguchi may have intended when they arrived at the American Football House to write their fourth full-length studio album, what they ultimately landed on was this: a collection of songs that feel as filled with emotion and childlike abandon as they do with air-guitar-inducing riffs, windows-down full-belt choruses, and an irresistible desire to drink in the setting sun. The music video for “Darcie” reads as a prime example of this. Shot in the world-famous Champagne, Urbana emo landmark, the playful fun of the track is paired with heartfelt lyrical recollections of a local legend. The video’s conceit sees the band reckoning with constant upgrades as their mics are replaced with popstar headsets and their instruments abruptly change size or are swapped for double-neck guitars. Throughout it all, a genuinely good hang is on full display.
Known as one of the preeminent bands in the chiptune genre, Anamanaguchi has been creating ultra-melodic 8-bit rock as far back as 2006. With a focus on instrumentals and a penchant for NES-style bleeps and bloops, it only made sense that the group would create the soundtrack for the Scott Pilgrim video game, contribute to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade-style beat ‘em up, and score their own high-concept experimental game. They’ve soundtracked podcasts, covered Nirvana, and collaborated with everyone from Hatsune Miku to Porter Robinson. It was only natural for the band to reach this point nearly two decades into their career and wonder “what’s next?”
Turns out what’s next is Anway, a twelve-song collection billed as Anamanaguchi’s first “lyrically driven rock record.” Though it’s landing at the tail end of summer, the album bursts with the energy, wonder, and unadulterated sprawling joys of carefree summers’ past. Recorded by Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Sleater-Kinney), the album’s embrace of vintage gear and straight-to-tape approach captures the scratchy incandescence of fireworks and sweating through your lightest clothes after playing for hours under an unset sun.
This sensation is telegraphed clearly with the opening track “Sparkler,” a fuzzed-out rager which makes it clear that tapping shoegaze wunderkinds Ovlov open for them on tour was not some random decision. As pixels sparkle and guitars explode, it’s easy to imagine how well the song will translate to a packed, sweaty rock crowd.
Later on, “Magnet” is a proper grungy alt-rock love song about a “dark romance that feels like it's gliding out of control in a blissful way,” with the band explaining, “We realized that this balance is a key part of the formula for Batman music.” Following that logic to its extreme, Anamanaguchi decided to turn this into a pitch to be in the next Batman movie, teaming up with Jared Raab of Nirvanna the Band the Show for a hilarious yet endearingly sweet homage to the lost art of the movie tie-in music video. Everything from Tim Burton’s 1989 classic to Nolan’s Batman and 2022’s Battinson are on the table as Anamanaguchi’s band members are spliced into pivotal scenes from the franchise’s various films, making for a marvelously edited music video. If this all sounds a bit confusing, the band has created this helpful chart to explain the various waves of Batrock.
While on first pass this graph reads as a funny instance of overcommitting to the bit, it’s actually a perfect example of the type of geeky dedication with which Anamanaguchi approaches their art. A studied band adept at richly texturing their music, the group display an omnivorous admiration for a multitude of rock genres throughout Anyway, accurately capturing the freeing, free-wheeling nature of jamming with your buds.
“Rage (Kitchen Sink)” feels like it’s trying to capture the spiraling misery of everything while also offering a glimpse of hope towards the end. The gentle, plodding melody climbing up against the band’s classic chiptune scales is an absolute blast to witness. “Valley of Silence” has the type of gorgeous, melancholy groove you’d find on a deep cut by The Cure, complete with a long, winding instrumental introduction to set the mood. One track before that, the cascading pianos of “Sapphire” evoke flashes of Culture Club and soaring '90s arena rock as the lyrics recount a loose history of the band, showcasing appreciation for their roots and the tools that brought them to this point in their storied career.
There are rug pulls and genre pivots abound. The immediate urgency of “Fall Away” performed a bait and switch on me as the track’s middle section steps the pace back before ramping back into a huge surge of instruments, bits and bytes all swirling into a technicolor cascade before sliding into a fuzzy, prickly layer of feedback. One of my favorite tracks on the album, “Buckwild,” lies smack dab in the middle and is a Wild Hogs-referencing track that opts for the nerdy pleasure of scoring a sought-after DVD at a yard sale over a night out on the town. Even with each half-turn to different shades of rock music, everything fits together beautifully and still sounds unmistakably Anamanaguchi. The variety is both staggering and engaging, and not just because of where the band has come from.
You finally reach your destination. Friends and neighbors surround you in a semi-circle of chairs. You're handed a bowl of popcorn as your friends cradle candy and hot dogs, things that act as the perfect complement to the end of the day. Sodas, waters, and sparkling seltzers are handed out liberally. Somewhere off to the side, someone's father is grilling over a quick setup hibachi, and a hush falls over everyone as they tell you it’s about to start. Your eyes meet the first to fire into the sky. A lone trail of flame and stardust connects with a particular black spot where it was meant to go and explodes into a menagerie of color and sound.
All the apprehension and twists and turns of the summer heat are beating upon your body till it feels like it’s cooking your bones. All the long walks and bike rides and time spent rollerblading have led to these moments where you get to stare into the night sky, surrounded by the people you care about. You're facing everything together, and you’re watching all the lights in the sky come up one after another. The immense and massive sound feels like it’s rattling your teeth. You feel every moment of the last few months – all the sticky days, the pool parties, the birthdays, the overeating, the trips to the mall, the walks off the beaten path into a hidden creek that you're sure no one else knows about.
Anyway finds each of these moments and spreads them across its dozen tracks, giving you a long journey to walk, but not an unfamiliar one. When the four members of Anamanaguchi assembled in that infamous emo house, they rediscovered the one simple truth that, if you’re having fun, making music with your friends is the most natural thing in the world. Even as the band takes a conscious step away from the “pure” chiptune sound of their previous work, what remains is something just as true and just as representative of what it feels like to be a fan of music, movies, video games, and art.
The one final truth that Anamanaguchi can offer to us with this album is that sometimes life is actually just really fun. Even in despair. Even in horror. Even as atrocities steal our breath and we experience a full-body chill for every autoplaying document of cruelty, we still have each other, we still have music, and we still have the hope of something better.
Southern California-born and raised, Elias can often be found at the local gig, be it screamo, emo, hardcore, or online @listentohyakkei, begging people to listen to theMANS Summer 2007 demo. Their time in the scene is patchwork, but their dedication to it and the music that makes it has made up the last few years of their life. They love this shit with the whole of their heart and will talk your ear off about it if you let them.
Screamo for fucking ever.
Love Your Friends, Die Laughing.
