Album Review: Ikitan – Shaping the Chaos (Self Released)

Ikitan, the heavy post-rock trio from Genoa, Italy, will release their first full length album ‘Shaping the Chaos’, on March 7th, 2025. Recorded between 2021 and 2025, the album is inspired by inexplicable phenomena or weird places from planet earth.

It’s been a while, but happily, Ikitan return from their ponderous state with an album full of music. Shaped by the years of living and growing that the band has done since the release of the single-track EP, ‘Twenty-Twenty’. A lot has happened, both within the band and outside of the band, and the nine tracks reflect that in Ikitan’s unique way.

A unique way that draws from familiar areas of the post rock genre, yet goes for a heavier and, at times, rawer feel. This noisier style is what gets the blood pumping in veins as the opening track Chicxulub showcases a primordial vibe. It’s a short introduction to the album, but a welcome one. Especially as it shows off just how Ikitan have used their inspirations to write. Something even better expressed with the following Lahar, Darvaza, and Sailing Stones.

Lahar has a laborious start, but it’s filled with tension. There’s danger here, but when it arrives it does so in stylish fashion, building towards a more destructive experience. Darvaza is fiery, yet it is filled with wonder too. It’s one of the more immediately ‘catchy’ efforts. As for Sailing Stones? As mysterious and fascinating as the geological phenomenon that inspired the name. Ikitan give this one some welly and express more progressive thinking.

Refusing to be shackled, Ikitan continue to find new ways to express themselves as the album moves into its second half. Not only showing off even more imagination with Natron, but flexing their muscles and expanding the package. This powerful piece, one that can be summed up as unhurried, is over ten-minutes long and filled with peaks and valleys.

A personal highlight though? I really like Bung Fai Phaya Nak and how Ikitan take something so simple, and so interesting, and tell their own story with it. It’s one of the most dramatic tracks of all thanks to the melodies, even though there are fun moments here and there.

Finally, it’s Brinicle, Blood Falls and 52 Hz Whale. The former track will make you shiver all over, while delighting in the emotional instrumental vastness of its sound. The middle track ebbs and flows impressively, delivering a more intense sound, but balancing that with expressive melodies. Finally, the latter, eases things out in atmospheric fashion. It’s a short closing piece but does a great job of ending things comfortably.

It has been more than worth the wait.

Ikitan – Shaping the Chaos Track Listing:

1. Chicxulub
2. Lahar
3. Darvaza
4. Sailing Stones
5. Natron
6. Bung Fai Phaya Nak
7. Brinicle
8. Blood Falls
9. 52 Hz Whale

Links

LinkTree | Bandcamp