Trivium singer and guitarist Matthew Kiichi Heafy has shared another song from ‘Rashomon’, the long-awaited and much-anticipated album from his Ibaraki project. ‘Rōnin’ features My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and Ihsahn (Emperor)
“‘A rōnin is a masterless warrior.”
elaborates Kiichi.
“The final two full compositions on Rashōmon see a significant shift musically. The album as a whole – with the exception of the intro and outro – is actually presented in chronological order of earliest written to latter-most. The guitar and bass tracks are a time-capsule of sorts in that their parts – on the final album – are actually from the year they were tracked.”
He continues,
“One can begin to see the shifts as the years went on for the writing of the album. ‘Kagutsuchi’/’Ibaraki-doji’ being written and tracked in 2010/2011, all the way up to ‘Rōnin’/’Susanoo No Mikot’ being written and tracked in 2016/2017.”
As for his collaboration with Gerard Way, Kiichi shares,
“Gerard Way has been a long-time inspiration for me – like Ihsahn and Nergal – I have looked to Gerard as a constant source of motivation to be creative. While Gerard and I may be from different genres than where Ibaraki and black metal stem from – outsiders of sorts – the spirit and intent of our performances is what unites our passion for pushing boundaries.”
The track opens with a more gentle verse than the previous two singles. The track benefits from the metal injection on the chorus with the harsher vocals that burst through as the music intensifies. An acoustic-led detour halfway through spins the track on its head showing off Heafy’s more delicate side, and it wouldn’t be Heafy without some wild guitar theatrics thrown in too. A monster of a track from one of metals very best songwriters.
Check it out, here
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