(Vital Weekly no. 317) Inu Yaroh is a Japanese band with a bass player, a drummer, a saxophone player, a synth player and 'shout'. Sometimes they are assisted by other musicians. This CD with five long live cuts was recorded in Japan, USA and Europe. In the USA line up they even use two drummers. Their music like a wall sounds, hughly distorted, but mostly in the low end part and less with high end stuff. The saxophone plays wildly free figures, and the voices rumble and mumble way back in the music. Inu Yaroh do not play, however, industrial music on conventional instrumets. Much more, with their lenghty guitar solos going through distortion boxes, they act much more like a fucked up krautrock band. Although the ideas are not bad, I must admit I found hearing five of those pieces a pretty tiring experience. I wonder what they would sound like inside a studio and when they structure their krauty experiments more... . - Frans de Waard
(Ampersand Etcetera 2002_10) A septet from Osaka captured on a European tour – I am not sure what the instrumentation is, but there is definitely drums, horns (sax and more original horn horns), synth or computer creating drones pulses and noise, guitar and bass. The first two tracks – 'Will be in existence' and 'Revelation of soul/destruction' are both very much full group work outs – horns wailing and blaring, drums, computer noise – driving full and intense: not mere noise but fairly noisy. The whole becomes more subtle with 'Already awakened' which is more restrained, includes some singing, a slow beat, more forefront computer sounds and a relaxed horn. It carries with it a sense of the invocation suggested by the album title, and builds to a voiced climax. 'Should be destroyed' is a long piece featuring the guitar as a twangy loose instrument to begin with, but as a lead solo instrument later. It carries its length well, building from another quieter beginning into an early group onslaught, relaxing into an easier middle before regrouping and employing the energy of the group to great effect. A short finale is provided by 'Will be opened'. Again, one that exceeded my expectations – no mere septet noise assault, but a nicely balanced energetic and enjoyable full bodied excursion. - Jeremy Keens
(Aural Innovations no. 23) Inu-Yaroh is a sonicly devastating blend of industrial, punk, metal, and free-jazz. The band is from Japan and the five tracks on the CD were recorded live in 2000 and 2001. During their European tour in 2001 the band was a quartet of saxophone, synth, bass and drums. On the Paris show cut the saxophone jams and wails and the drums pound against a dense, throbbing wall of sound. It's very aggressive but very passionate and the resulting glom has a kind of thrashing industrial free-jazz feel. The Bern, Switzerland show starts off equally dense, but more sedate and measured in its pace. The free-jazz feel is more overt though the drums and synths add a heavy and spacey rock element. The throb is massive and feels like having a vibrator jacked directly into your brain. And Matsuda's shouting is a bit crazed, adding a dash of Naked City to the mix. Absolutely wild and frantic stuff. From the 2000 US tour the Miami show is represented and features a lineup of six musicians, adding to the quartet an additional sax player and drummer. The drummers and saxophonists play like they're in duels to the death, bringing to mind the sonic equivalent of a buffalo stampede. But the hands down highlight of the CD is the Kyoto, Japan show from 2001 in which the band appear as a quintet with a guitarist. The 23 minute track consists of frantic jamming with shimmering electronics and rising and falling alien sounds. I really dig the addition of the guitarist who kicks out all kinds of sounds like old time wah'd funk to spitfire solos. The tension builds to ever greater levels as the jam progresses and the energy of the players is unlike anything heard on the other tracks. A totally punked out metallic acid drenched free-jazz rockin assault. KILLER!! File under very dense, very intense, and very cool. Recommended. - Jerry Kranitz
(Broken Face no. 14) Inu-Yaroh's The Next Door Will Be Opened is probably not a disc that one I should try to understand either as this portion of live Nipponese noise rock is of the very energetic kind (although rather down tempo) that is hard to pin down in words. Skronky guitar storms wrestle with Krautinspired drum patterns, spacey synths, wild sax, bass and shouting vocals in a sound environment that feels like sitting inside a distortion box. Thus, these five long cuts are definitely not for everybody. - Mats Gustafsson
(Eld Rich Palmer no. 11) I have gotten another bunch of CD-R's from Public Eyesore, which are always welcome!... The live shot from the release cover showing a guitarist, a drummer and a man who plays some wind instrument, played a prominent role when I was to choose the item to start with. These three passionately playing men are Japanese Inu-Yaroh, although the release informs about rather changeable line-ups regarding to the places where a track was recorded. Yes, this is a live record compiled with outtakes from three international tours across USA, Europe, and their home land Japan... Inu-Yaroh play improvised music. Anyone surprised?! Bryan Day slowly, but consequently restricts his interest to only North American and Japanese artists. Secondly, Public Eyesore takes a turn in a direction of improvised music. The basis of all tracks seem to be beats and basses, distorted and fuzzed being strongly supported by a sax and effected sax (whatever it means). However, it is a mixed bag. That collective body is very flexible in targeting its aims, their music seems to be a cross-sectional for this genre. From a heavy and nasty drumming in the vein of Crash Worship or Esplendor Geometrico, through complex textures with a noise edge (AMM, Morphogenesis), to even punk, Zorn-like gallopade, but some moody, very spatial, psychedelic mind-trips are also noticeable. Solid and good playing, but I miss something in Inu-Yaroh... - Krzysztof Sadza
(Aiding & Abetting no. 234) There's this moment on Washingmachinemouth, a Pigface remix album from a long time ago, where the sound of the song completely fuzzes out into this dull roar. The drums are but pulses, the guitars curtains of distortion. It's a really great moment. Inu-Yaroh is in that moment from beginning to end. And man, does it sound cool. These are live recordings, which is pretty remarkable. You might think that it would be easy to set up a tres-muddy sound mix, but to do it in such a way as to allow the individual instruments to be heard distinctly is impressive. Often, that takes quite a bit of studio tweaking. Abstract noise that really packs a punch. There's so much here to like that I can hardly begin to describe my ardor. Totally smitten am I. - Jon Worley
(Neozine) Totally demented noize rock featuring sax, bass, drums, shouts, noise, synthesizers, effects, and ganelan. Parts of this were rcorded in Paris, Miami, and Japan (live.) This has the same effect that the Butthole Surfers have on their freakier live noise experiments (like on the double live album.) or maybe Gravitar’s rumbling destruction. It has the dynamic of an apocalyptic rock band looking to frighten its audience with the most outlandish, harsh, and unfamiliar sounds that it can create, yet maintains the artistic ambiguity and need for personal interpretation that an experimental noise artist would bring to the table. These shows must have been fantastically chaotic and horrifically inspiring to attend. - C.H.C.
