Written by Louis Pelingen
5 years after its release, Kulayan Natin is quite the impressive musical landmark for the quintet band Munimuni. Not just because of the breadth of melodic phrasing and comfortable aura that it provides, but the fact that Munimuni was able to put their spin on progressive folk in the local scene and push the sound a little further where the rustic compositions unfold in a fascinatingly majestic fashion that allows the beauty of the emotional resonance from the poetry and performances to captivate with aplomb. However, the band has experienced bumps on the road, taking a needed hiatus due to the isolating lockdown in 2020 and TJ de Ocampo leaving after the band’s comeback in 2021. Since then, the band has taken their time to ruminate what had transpired beforehand as they carefully kept putting more songs on the road as well as adding their new member Ben Ayes in 2023 to contribute more flourish to the band’s instrumental beauty.
All of this culminates in the long-awaited sophomore album of Munimuni, Alegorya, and how it mostly retains the progressive tapestries that are usually filled with wondrous melodic swells and buildups that end in fantastic quality, courtesy of the delicate array of woodwinds and acoustics that are twinkling as ever. But there is a shift in the compositions and performances this time around. Adj Jiao’s singing tries to push his vocals in more expressive ranges to pair off with the compositions that have more groove and textures taken from modern indie rock which makes the melodies more tasteful in their direction to go for more immediate swerves, a direction that can become a double-edged sword, especially when the production makes the textures and mixing bit too modestly pristine and tame for its own good and the melodic stripes all across the album may carry some of their usual dynamic progressive tapestries but don’t have the same impactful heft that the band managed to pull together back on their debut album.
It doesn’t mean the band doesn’t carry it well enough as they still create flickers of melodic charm. The lilting air of “Sikat ng Araw” is soothing as the vocal harmonies, blurry guitars, and winsome flute melodies are soaked with a warm aura around it, Adj’s vocals build the sense of assured realization as he picks up more bombast on Alegorya, the layered melodic progressions on “Paraiso” successfully leads up to the frenetic solo guitar melody careening off at the end, the overwhelming instrumental freakout on “Alpa” is a welcome surprise as it slowly composes itself before it soars up to the skies with an ecstatic blaze, and the spare acoustics and flutes gliding around Adj Jiao and Barbie Almalbis’ gorgeous vocal harmonies on “Tupa” are terrific even if it could’ve been extended so the string section can have more presence to add more emotional swell to their harmonies instead of being used to accent the atmosphere at the very end of the song.
The emotions that were written in the poetry also took a flip as well. Unlike the comforting tones that were embedded all across their debut, this album generally delves into musings of frustration and melancholy. Emotions that put the band in a state of creative burnout on “Respeto’, which eventually leads to the subsequent pieces of writing to feel like an exploration within that gloomy space, providing an introspection towards understanding the range of emotional raft in addition to the existential reflection towards love, life, and identity.
All of these are tied together through the imagery of a cave that may serve as the metaphorical personal journey of the band’s introspective process, one that allows the insight and realization to parse through their mind but can also become a limit when it becomes a hideaway that never allows them to move past that melancholy.
Yet, amidst all of that sorrow, there is still a consistent cling on yearning to the aspect of love, a presence that despite all odds, gives them hope to move on forward to that dark abyss and come out feeling much better at the end. Creating an emotional throughline that does have its resonance, yet the use of details and imagery could’ve been pushed forward, allowing the moving quality to be intensified as there are spots in the lyricism where the simplistic phrasings don’t exactly support the internal emotional insight that the performances and compositions try to sell.
Moving into and out of the darkness, Alegorya pivots around with its sound, performances, and writing to create reflective pieces of the personal struggle that the band works through, pieces that eventually hold together when the specks of melodies and writing manage to stick the landing. As much as parts of the compositions open up the emotions to poignant places, the exploration of this pathos is less stellar, where the production, poetry, and progressions have a semblance of restraint that hides that poignancy rather than open it up much more. The allegory of this journey may be well-defined, but there is a hushness that keeps the feelings from echoing astoundingly.
Support the art & the artist: