Song Review #22: “Venom” by Jiluka

Apologies for the lack of content recently! Things have gotten pretty busy, but I want to try to get back to a regular schedule here again, maybe starting with weekly posts.

Of course it would be a song like this that would bring me back here. Today, we’re talking about a new single from the Japanese visual kei metal band Jiluka, titled Venom.

This is the first thing I’ve ever heard from this band, so I’m guessing this is just what they like to do, but holy mother of God, is this song just the epitome of madness. So many seemingly random elements are blended together in this song, ranging from the djent guitars that have basically defined modern metal, to sudden orchestral add-ins, to punchy electronics and dubstep sampling. It feels like during production, the challenge was to see how many intrusive thoughts could be executed between choruses. I don’t mean this in a negative way at all; In fact, the frantic, varied sound of this song makes it super refreshing to listen to.

There are a few moments I had listening to this song where I couldn’t resist laughing a little, due not only to some of the incredibly bold compositional decisions that were made, but also to how well they were pulled off. It takes some serious skill to turn your breakdown into a dubstep beat drop, and it goes way harder here than I would have ever imagined possible.

I also love how this song basically has four endings. Everything wraps up, and it seems like it will fade away with some nice ambience, but instead that ambience just cuts, and the song jumpscares you multiple times with blasts of random guitar and orchestra noises. Sophistication has left the building, and now the band’s just doing dumb, funny stuff, and it makes for probably one of my favorite endings to any metal track I’ve heard this year.

So yes, this song is a mind-bending auditory representation of the manic energy of a rat on steroids (I don’t know what I’m saying anymore), but it is also masterfully composed, and a lot of fun. So much happens that it feels like the song should be seven minutes long, but Jiluka somehow managed to do all of this in four. I highly recommend you check this out, because I for sure will be going through the rest of their discography. Hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you all… at some point!