Kodaclips – Gone Is The Day

“Gone Is The Day” is the latest release by Kodaclips, an excellent Italian band based in Cesena. It’s their second full-length album, arriving as a perfect continuation of “Glances,” a critically acclaimed collection of marvelous songs published in 2023. Still, their latest effort comes with many innovations in songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing. Heavily promoted with a title track, “Viola,” and “Fall Apart,” three outstanding singles that vividly showcase what you might expect from this material, “Gone Is The Day” resonates with such a mesmerizing ambiance that immediately grabs you by the collar and refuses to let go even after this catchy, engaging, memorable amalgam of song ends. Soundwise, Kodaclips combines many different but complementary music genres to depict rich and luxurious sonic imagery. Perhaps, shoegaze comes to mind at first, as the band dominantly showcases their interest in the eighties, nineties, noughties, and modern renditions of this longevious music genre. However, you’ll notice how some of the finest properties borrowed from alternative, proto-grunge, post-grunge, post-hardcore, post-punk, indie rock, and dream pop lurk around in the mix. Their continuous experimentation with the sound doesn’t stop there. Quite the contrary, Kodaclips uses all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, and other details to elevate this comprehensive collection of songs to an entirely new level while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Anyone even remotely into writing, composing, arranging, and producing music knows it’s a difficult task to achieve, but Kodaclips did it with such precision and finesse, emphasizing all their qualities to the max.

As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that these experienced musicians are not joking around with their sound. Each composition arrives with a luxurious structure, garnered with many complex segments, brilliant ideas, and outstanding musicianship. They poured heart and soul into this track, making “Gone Is The Day” such a pleasant listening experience worth repeating over and over again. The attention to detail and the sheer amount of marvelous instrumentation involved here goes beyond comprehension so many times. Introductory tracks like “Glaze Over,” “Viola,” and “Gone Is The Day,” are perfect examples of how these profoundly creative musicians combined everything you dearly love about shoegaze, alternative, post-punk, and indie rock. The guitars resonate with bold, vibrant, ethereal, reverby, arpeggiated, and regular chord progression, signifying such a cathartic sonic journey ahead. The interplay between rhythm and lead guitars delivers a multilayered experience where each delivered theme, melody, harmony, chord progression, and riff tickles all the senses. The contrast between crystal clear, polished notes and heavily distorted riffs spices things up on an entirely new level, and it’s one of those details that defines the Kodaclips sound. Of course, the enormously heavy, clear, deep, warm-sounding low-ends rumble beneath all these guitar layers, giving more stability and power to these tracks while the cleverly assembled, well-accentuated, flawlessly performed beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keep everything in line while dictating groove and pace.

Still, the passionate, sincere, confident, powerful vocal performance steals the show here. These vocal articulations are vividly hearable on tracks such as “Gone In The Day,” “Deadlock,” and “Fall Apart,” where voice acts as an additional instrument. These excellent vocal harmonies command attention and guide the listening apparatus with such precision and finesse while decorating everything the remainder of the band tried to achieve with their music. The impressive vocal range seamlessly balances low, mid, and high notes while emphasizing all the segments and orchestrations. The vocalist covers all vocal registers but still maintains the emotional depth that defines all these songs. You’ll also hear how the voice remains clean, polished, and almost polyphonic throughout the entire full-length while the generous servings of reverb effect give that recognizable echoic vibe. It’s nearly mindblowing how Kodaclips continuously levitate between so many genres but always remain loyal to shoegaze. For example, songs like “Glaze Over,” “Viola,” “Deadlock,” and “Fall Apart” carry all the vital ingredients of post-punk music, while “Sleep, Doom, Shelter” leans much more towards modern post-hardcore heavily drenched in post-rock sound. Of course, some of these sonic maneuvers resemble something goth rock and indie rock bands would eventually record during the heyday, but Kodaclips unquestionably sound fresh, unique, versatile, and innovative all the time, demonstrating all their signature moves that define their music.

Kodaclips is one of those bands that never ceases to amaze. In the vast sea of shoegaze bands who often share the same, old, repetitious, bland music, Kodaclips stand out in their innovation, showcasing all their experience, knowledge, creativity, talent, and skills. “Gone Is The Day” is more than rock-solid proof of their commitment to the craft, as this amalgam continuously demonstrates all the fundamentals of the shoegaze music, but with many additional elements that make this album even more enjoyable. Kodaclips unquestionably deserve your attention, as these creative musicians landed one of the best shoegaze records this year. “Gone Is The Day” is available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!