my dead girlfriend
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if you’ve ever been in a sensory deprivation chamber, you might have an idea of how it feels to listen to my dead girlfriend’s Hades (The Nine Stages of Change at the Deceased Remains) (aka Hades) with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. it’s an all-encompassing sound, feeling like a wall of sheer noise that is more comforting than you might think. the album leans on heavier shoegaze rock but blends in some alternative, grunge, and electronica to destabilize their sound into something completely fresh. the result is an all-encompassing sound that never stops driving into the brain like a sonic drill. it’s the only full-length album from the band, coming from 2015 (though a handful of smaller releases since do exist), yet it manages to live on much longer in my mind through sheer unique identity. it struggles a bit with midpoint exhaustion but ends up clearing the goal line nearly as strong as it began. let’s get into it.
the album establishes a formula almost off the bat. by utilizing a thick stream of feedback noise and a pounding beat of drums, Hades uses this as the foundation to build from. it rarely ever lets off this steam, which tends to give the album an all-encompassing feeling, like being buried under a static-charged blanket fresh from the dryer. from this point, the vocalist, Yuki Ishikawa, brings interesting contrast through her cutesy and innocent voicing. the remarkably sweet tones of her voice help pull the listener away from this wall of noise into the true identity of their music. helped along by twinkling electronica, vibrant guitar work, and some awesome ear-crackling feedback peaking through the headphones, the album thrives on the gulf it builds between its deep lows and soaring highs. as the crashing waves of powerful drumming, noise, and grunge fully encase the music, the lofty instrumentals and vocals balance out the work incredibly well. i’ve certainly never heard an album like this and find it immediately attractive and endlessly listenable... accounting for a touch of hyperbole.
their main sound of downplayed shoegaze remains the core of their music but is seamlessly complemented by short meanderings into some brilliant avenues of genre-bending along the way. electronica-focused music, like in “hades in the dead of winter” and “te wo futte,” shows off an addicting collision of synthetic sound interwoven with some powerful bass and guitar work. both these songs are especially what keep me coming back to my dead girlfriend so often. they exhibit what unifies their unique sound and what makes them so appealing. it’s something about that twinkling robotic tone sprinkled throughout the songs that really locks in the identity of the album for me.
it even manages to achieve some terrific levels of grunge rock that really filth up the pristine and lucid highs of “te wo futte.” “I think about Mary Poppins” has, in fact, nothing to do with Mary Poppins. unless she moonlights as a drummer for Creed... by late in the song, it definitely grinds up against the mental image of standing 6 feet from the edge. but, like, damn. a Japanese shoegaze band made me feel that way? kind of incredibly dope. there is a special flavor of magic happening here that i have only ever found in this album.
the album achieves a deep flow state that makes it so frictionless to keep alive over its full runtime. however, i find that somewhere in the mid-to-late point, it can build up some fatigue. the strongest advantage of the album, the heavy static, becomes its own drawback. by the time i come into the middle of the album, i begin to glaze over a bit. i think the album works best with a split listening session or coming back to favorite songs here and there after the fact. that said, i don’t think it outright makes it a poor album, just that the core idea is being upheld the whole way through. it feels unique enough to let it slide for the interest factor.
“incarnation of pessimism” is a deeply shoegaze-formatted song that has a great flow and subversion of their established sound. the song vibes and waves its way through by focusing on bass and drum work, the vocals becoming the spine of the song. it maintains the dark but warm persona of the album before burning out in the final part of the album. it’s a terrific song that feels understated among the album’s more showy tracks, but really shades in the necessary dark gaze of the album.
that said, the final couple of songs, “yurikago kara hakaba made” and “hakuiki,” really help uplift the final moments of the album back into tangible, hair-tingling frisson. by switching up the sound interwoven in subtle and interesting ways, the album manages to stick the landing. “yurikago kara hakaba made” is much lighter than the heavy, wading music that came before. from the opening, it begins with a much more energetic and excited persona, the drums coming to life and owning the experience much more than when they were maintaining it. “hakuiki” especially helps bookend the album by deviating in the first part of the song with a slow, monotonous beat and sallow guitar work that slowly builds over time. by the time the song’s incredible ear-splitting feedback noise screeches into the picture, the song begins to build more ground. it isn’t until well past halfway through the song that “hakuiki” explodes into a finale. the build continues its subtle climb but grows increasingly exponential. the last minute is fueled by complete burnout and release. the all-encompassing sound of Hades, all that noise and feedback and static and beating drums and electronica folding into itself. it almost becomes intolerable, but in a rock-out, enjoyable way. it’s a statement from my dead girlfriend, about their identity, their sound. a very clear statement.
my dead girlfriend seems like (mostly) a one-off band. with only one studio album release under their belt, i think it would be easy for this album to get lost in the sands of time. for me, it also happens to be one of the most unique sounds in music that i’ve heard to this day. the complicated fusion of noise ends up being much more than the sum of its parts. by far. what should be a wall of static noise ends up being a relief. the blaring onslaught of music reaches past into a mode of bliss. musically, with the right pair of headphones, Hades ends up quite close to the experience one might have in a sensory deprivation tank.
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Highlights
te wo futte 「手を振って」
hades in the dead of winter
I think about Mary Poppins
hakuiki 「吐く息」 (The Last Stage of Change at the Deceased Remains)
Tracklist
kanojo ga tsumetaku warattara 「彼女が冷たく笑ったら」 (Prologue to the Nine Stages of Change at the Deceased Remains)
te wo futte 「手を振って」
hades in the dead of winter
danke
Hong Kong Police
I think about Mary Poppins
incarnation of pessimism
kanojo ga atsukute kusattara 「彼女が暑くて腐ったら」
yurikago kara hakaba made
hakuiki 「吐く息」 (The Last Stage of Change at the Deceased Remains)
