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Reviews

Hyper Gal — After Image
(Skin Graft SG, 2024, CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2025-05-15

After Image Cover art

I described Hyper Gal’s previous album as “a blast of noise,” and while I did enjoy the album, it was a bit much to take for the entire length. Everything was so over-driven and over-compressed that it was overwhelming, leaving my ears craving silence, or at least a measure of tranquility. After Image is similar in many respects, though it comes off as less extreme and more listenable – or maybe I’m just more acclimated to their sound. Sure, it’s still just the duo of Kurumi Kadoya on drums and synths and Koharu Ishida on vocals, but there’s a lot more going on, making Pure seem stripped-down by comparison. There’s more complexity in the synthesizer parts, often with multiple lines covering bass, chords, and other parts as well as various flavors of noise. As for Ishida’s vocals, they lean more heavily on singing and less on screaming than before. In between those extremes, she can be heard speaking, shouting, and what might be described as chirpy rapping, often with effects and treatments. Kadoya’s drum parts generally avoid typical rock patterns, instead concentrating on busy snare work. If you’ve listened to a lot of Japanese avant-pop, you might find similarities with Midori. Esthetically, we’re in similar territory with The Boredoms and Space Streakings (whom I previously described as “like a ride at 200 miles per hour strapped onto a remote-controlled rocket-propelled skateboard through a crowded dystopian city, the mutant inhabitants of which have been offered a prize if they can catch you, dead or alive”). Hyper Gal’s After Image is not as intense as that, but it’s still a pretty wild proposition, and worth checking out if you’re in the market for something way off the beaten path.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Hyper Gal

More info
http://hypergal.bandcamp.com/album/after-image

 

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