Despite the EP cover for Beyond Death, Beyond Reason, the band's music, and the band's name, Nodachi hails from Durham, North Carolina and described itself as "emo-influenced prog." While Nodachi's tag for itself does seem true to a certain extent, the five tracks contained within Beyond Death, Beyond Reason span everything from soundtrack-esque violin work to urgent jazzy interludes… and yeah, there's definitely some emo in there too.
The titles of the album seem to tell a story, and each segment of the five-track EP takes on a very different tonality from the previous one. While the opener "Jin-Kali Prince of Psychopathy" embodies a mixture of the self-proclaimed "emo" sound and a little bit of the early 2010s djent-jazz clean guitar before opening up to violin melodies, "Awakened, We Become The Blade" dives right in to a foreboding melody that never lets up despite the songs ever-shifting feel.
Even after the next two tracks, which are just legitimately beautiful pieces, the closer "The Prince Falls, We Await The Next Harbinger" brings forth violence and blast beats. The album is instrumental, but the songs seem to be titled to tell the story that the absence of vocals doesn't. It offers the listener a sense of wonder in a way – you've got the soundtrack and the general outline of a story, but the actual cinematic visuals is entirely up to you.
Beyond Death, Beyond Reason can be heard in its entirety below, and you ought to follow the band on Facebook to keep up with the release of physical copies of the album!
