Release Date: 22 October 2021
Song Count: 10
Rating: 8.0/10
Description:
What's this - three different artists in one album?! Two countries as tags?! That is right, you are not reading this post incorrectly. The 2021 album Downfall of the Neon Youth, published under Longinus Recordings, is a collaborative piece made by shoegaze artists Parannoul, Asian Glow (both from South Korea) and sonhos tomam conta (from Brazil). Cruising through the vastly unexplored yet colourful and innovative scenes of blackgaze and fifth wave emo, the three have come together to create a once-in-a-lifetime experience by fusing each of their individual styles of music into a singular noisy, gloomy sonical force piercing through the eardrums of those that are up for the listen.
Downfall of the Neon Youth has an incredibly interesting pattern in which all of the songs not only are each produced by one artist (tracks 1, 4, 9 and 10 being Paranoull's works, 2, 5 and 7 by Asian Glow and 3, 6 and 8 by STC), but also cycle between lyrics in three entirely different languages - English, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese - to further act as a mixture of the musicians' talents. The songs tend to have the signature "wall of noise" effect of shoegaze induced by layered guitars, synths and chunky distortions, with varying levels of volume and strength, paired together with dim melodic touches and faraway vocals being swept and drowning under the pressure the instrumental represents. Hints of blackwave influences are also present, with occasional metal-adjacent growls and incredibly fast drumming at certain key moments of some songs.
If there was only one word I could use to describe this album, it would be "intense". While the strides it takes to reinvent the musical wheel and experiment with multiple moving parts all at once that could easily cause the album to become disjointed and beyond any sort of rationality are remarkable, it is most certainly not for everyone with its sheer technical and emotional density. Thankfully, the effect did land on me, however, and the ambience Downfall of the Neon Youth brings in is truly one you cannot find or reproduce anywhere else.