
Dear Youth: Hitsuji Bungaku’s Cautionary Tale of Growing Up
The indie-rock trio sounds jaded as ever as the band returns to old sounds for its debut full-length
If only Moeka Shiozuka knew what would await her at the end of her journey. The frontwoman of indie-rock trio Hitsuji Bungaku yearned for the day she matured into herself in the band’s debut EP, At the End of the Tunnel, as she spilled out feelings overwhelming and immutable as the reverb-drenched rock music playing behind her. What lightened the noise was the underlying notion that her audible frustrations would eventually pass. But while she seems to have grown out of those emotional bumps in the band’s first full-length, Dear Youths, she sounds more worn out with the music turning a shade darker than before.
Hitsuji Bungaku took it upon itself to bury some of the noise in between the two records. The garage-rock in A Short Trip to the Orange-Chocolate-House EP from earlier this year still sounded rough in fidelity, though it breezed along without much pedal effects clouding its head space. However, the clarity was short-lived with Dear Youth returning the band’s sound to its original, dense state. Not only does the album bring back the distortion buzzing throughout its debut, the band plays deviant like it, too: the curdling scream of “Drama” disrupts the band’s otherwise calm drift like the sharp ringing introducing “Haru” from the Tunnel EP.
While the sound of Dear Youth comes full circle, Shiozuka has emotionally outgrown the scrappy rock music she once liked to play with her band mates. A pent-up scream would’ve been her go-to mode of expression for a spiky rock track like “Drama,” but she doesn’t seem so entertained to make noise just for the sake of it. She now chooses instead to sing in a rather stately manner, and the remove in energy feels more apt as the lyrics pour in. “Our glory days are ending/ we don’t have any meaning to live,” the singer sighs as a faint scream in the background threatens to drown her out. She hums a tuneful hook as the song slowly fades, though it’s tough to savor the sweetness from such jaded music.
The most exhausted anthems of Dear Youth make the best of its hefty space to define the record’s bitter core. The album boldly starts with an almost six-minute suggestion for an amicable break-up in “Ending,” a prime example of how Hitsuji Bungaku decides to use the most aggressive form of noise in this album. Rather than borrowing again from the fuzzy ends of shoegaze to express innocent longing, it adopts the searing burn of post-rock to evoke a slow yet intense emotional collapse. Shiozuka similarly sings in “Red” about not only her fear of love but also envy of another youth’s naivete, and what props her defeated lyrics are a set of blown-out guitar riffs, all ragged like her insides.
The trio crafts more concise as well as hard-hitting songs, though the change in speed and momentum only deepens the feeling of regret written in the lyrics. “Picture Diary” thrills with its wired rock more than its slow-burning counterparts, yet the sprinting feel frames the what-ifs dropped by Shiozuka into something more rapidly fleeting. She confronts the past more nobly in “Calling”with the most agile and pop sound out of the album, though she doesn’t so much make peace with her past than fully disregard it in favor of the future. The band rushes ahead, reducing what’s left behind as ephemeral matters.
The title of Hitsuji Bungaku’s full-length alludes to its music as a cautionary tale for those hurrying to grow up. But while many songs in Dear Youth finds Shiozuka anxious to move on forward, “Summer-like”offers a brief moment where she embraces stillness to admire the now. Just like the band trying out those old sounds once more, she returns to a familiar place that once brought her emotional comfort during her youth. “One day, the scenes I saw today/ I’ll probably end up loving it,” she concludes the peaceful song. Comfort may be tougher to find this time around, but Hitsuji Bungaku assures hope for those willing to look.
