Did anyone play that game from a couple years ago called Severed?
It was this game by the makers of Guacamelee!, Drinkbox Studios. It was actually their immediate follow-up. I think people missed on it because it was primarily on some dead men walking, I.E. the PS Vita and Wii U (though it did get ported to Switch, much like every other indie game except Axiom Verge). Which is a shame really, for that was a really interesting game. It was this psychedelically weird cross between an old-school dungeon crawler (we’re talking Shining in the Darkness here) and a sword fighting game. It was set in this form of intense purgatory where you had to find your family after an attack which leaves you missing a hand. The game was many parts strange and bizarre, but it was also extremely fascinating in the way it just conveyed death and struggle, as well as grief.
Of course, why am I talking about this here, when the Video Games feature was two months ago? The score was done by this band, YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, in conjunction with the collective Pantayo. It was a pretty amazing score, better than a lot of what came out that year (save maybe Hyper Light Drifter?), giving off this darkly spaghetti Western vibe that didn’t rely on worn-over and hokey country-blues-rock kitstch. It’s an incredible piece of work.
Anyway, that was YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN’s last big work. Now they got something new rolling out called DIRT. It’s out March 23 on Paper Bag Records, with a spring tour to follow. Today, they’ve unleashed their newest single, “Yandere (ヤンデレ).” It’s the word the Japanese use to describe those obsessive stalker types. (You know: the ones that fall head over heels in love with you, but because they are somewhat…broken, they turn that love into a very dangerous and destructive obsession that scares the piss out of everyone, including you? And usually most of the time you aren’t that interested in them anyway? Yeah, that.)
The video for “Yandere”, directed by Joyce Wong, demonstrates how the yandere works…in the form of a cross between AM from I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, every waifu in existence, and maybe Ideon. Check it out down below, and pre-order Dirt on CD and LP here.
Dirt tracklisting:
01. Karonhiake
02. Someplace
03. Dark Waters
04. Yandere
05. The Decay
06. Beast
07. Hungry Ghost
08. Dirt
09. Tawine
10. Out of Time