A much longer-lived act than the shibuya-kei scene that they were originally associated with,
Buffalo Daughter continue to push forward with
We Are the Times. The band's first album since 2014's Konjac-tion,
We Are the Times finds them responding to the chaos of the early 2020s by seeking sustenance in the endless possibilities and playfulness of their music. As they state on the opening track, "music is the vitamin," and
Buffalo Daughter deliver heroic doses of audacious sounds, as well as some social commentary, on "Global Warming Kills Us All," where what sounds like a malfunctioning robot intones the titular phrase over accompaniment that switches from logy beats and sagging synths to jazzy rock. The trio's genre-mashing prowess might be even more nimble on
We Are the Times than it was back in the day, and it's crucial to how skillfully they pull off the album's daring clashes and combinations of styles.
Buffalo Daughter outdo themselves consistently, whether on the downtown punk-funk of "Don't Punk Out," the tour-de-force "Loop," which holds its brassy excursions together with an insistent keyboard hook and jaw-dropping drumming, or "ET (Densha)," a juxtaposition of needling, no wave guitars and blobby synths that evokes a nighttime cityscape and reaches ominously orchestral proportions as it comes to a close. On songs like these,
Buffalo Daughter have as much -- or more -- in common with
Battles or
Nisennenmondai than they do with the groups they were initially (and according to the band, incorrectly) lumped in with, but on "Times," which shifts from busy collage to languid mirage and back again, the state of flux they achieve is theirs alone. Even when
We Are the Times recalls the band's early days, it doesn't feel nostalgic; while the album's final track, "Everything Valley," is a piece of percolating, expansive synth rock that could've appeared on New Rock, it just emphasizes how far ahead of their time they were with that record.
Buffalo Daughter are as funky, innovative, and colorful as ever, and hearing them find new ways to celebrate music and creativity on
We Are the Times is a pleasure. ~ Heather Phares