Today we have another episode of my "Pick 5" series.
This time I will follow the request of one
of my viewers and present a list about Japanese
This time I will follow the request of one
of my viewers and present a list about Japanese
I want to avoid the obvious names like X Japan
or Sigh and try to gather some of the hidden gems
I want to avoid the obvious names like X Japan
or Sigh and try to gather some of the hidden gems
I hope you will discover something new, so
let´s jump right into the list!
We will start with the "most japanese" sounding
band on this list.
Birushanah combine traditional japanese music
scales and folk with different Extreme Metal
genres like Doom Metal or Sludge.
The band makes heavy use of primal and ritualistic
percussions, which transition well into the
massive guitar riffs.
Meanwhile there is a wide range of clean vocals,
which again have a very traditional touch.
There are some extreme vocals too, but these
are mostly limited to shouting.
Most BIRUSHANAH songs hit the 10 minute mark
and some are even around 20 minutes long,
but the songwriting has mezmerizing build-ups,
which keep the listener involved in the music.
BIRUSHANAH create their original style since
15 years and released a total of three albums,
one single and a split CD with the US american
band Drain The Sky.
Their latest album "Makyo" was released in
August of 2015 and shows perfectly that they
didnt run out of ideas yet.
I would even call it their best album so far,
even tho it heavily competes with their great
debut "Akai Yami".
Kadenzza may seem like your typical Symphonic
Black Metal band until you slowly dive deeper
into the music of their three released albums.
Extensive song structures, great guitar solos
and lovely sound details make Kadenzza a fantastic
experience.
The man behind this project is You Oshima,
who composes and recordes all the music by
himself.
With so much talent it isnt surprising that
he joined the japanese Prog Metal kings Sigh
as a new guitarist.
Metal Archives dates the formation of Kadenzza
back to 1993.
However it took almost 10 years for "The Reality
in the Phantasmagoric World" to be released.
Sadly Oshima, who lives in Iwaki/Fukushima,
experienced multiple tragedies like being
diagnosed with cancer and the Tohoku earthquake
and tsunami in 2011.
Therefore the masterpiece "The Second Renaissance"
from 2005 remains as the last album before
Kadenzza was put on hold.
The project is still inactive, but when Oshima
joined Sight in 2014 he also talked about
a potential resurrection of the band.
Let´s hope for the best!
Next is the progressive Extreme Metal band
Gonin-Isshu.
Their name is inspired by "Hyakunin-Isshu",
which is a classical anthology of 100 Japanese
poems, made by 100 different poets.
"Go" means five and is the number of their
band members, so the meaning becomes something
along the lines of "collection of songs by
5 artists".
The band is active since 1996 and released
one demo, one single and two albums.
Their latest album "Naishikyo-Sekai" from
2005 was later re-released by the french label
Season of Mist.
Their music is a diverse mix of 70s Prog Rock,
Fusion and jazzy Extreme Metal like Cynic or Atheist.
Some of the bands trademarks are the divserse
clean and harsh vocals from their female fronter
Anoji Matsuoka and the playful piano and synth
parts from Masashi Momota.
As I said there wasnt a new release in over
10 years, but the band is still active and
hopefully working on new songs.
It is pretty hard to find informations about
Vice Lords Of Valhalla.
I couldnt determine their exact founding year
or location.
However Matt Thompson, Allen Andreas, Adrian
Gorman and Kazuya Tadenuma seem to be active
in Japan since at least 2008.
It seems like some of them are immigrants
or oversea students, but it doesnt matter anyway.
It seems like some of them are immigrants
or oversea students, but it doesnt matter anyway.
Vice Lords Of Valhalla call their music Viking
Metal, but you can detect their irony pretty fast.
Especially when you notice the "Fake Metal"
tag on their bandcamp page.
Vice Lords Of Valhalla call their music Viking
Metal, but you can detect their irony pretty fast.
Their music is a mix of classic Prog Rock,
Alternative Rock and some Doom Metal with
a few spots of Extreme Metal.
So far they released one self-titled album
in march 2012.
calm and melodic with focus on the playful
lead guitar.
a few spots of Extreme Metal.
The production could be improved, but it has
a pretty warm and organic sound.
I hope this band is still active, but I couldnt
find any recent news.
Our last band is very odd.
Brain Death Zombie from western Japan were
formed in may 2011.
Their first and only physical release is a
self-titled mini-album from 2012, which is
one of the darkest musical works I have ever
heard.
Imagine the insanity of Dir En Grey´s "The
Blossoming Beelzebub" meeting a mix of Doom,
Nu Metal, Industrial and Ambient.
The vocals are strange and theatrical, taking
inspiraton from the Ankoku Butoh theater form.
Their vague names Zombie, Kaiki, R, TK and
S add to the mysterious aura, which is surrounding
this band.
In October 2012 Brain Death Zombie relocated
to London, UK.
There they renamed to kantera. and worked
on new songs, which can be found on their
Soundcloud page.
Their music became less Metal and more Electronic
and Ambient influenced.
In London they also formed the artistic project
"West Village MUSICworks", which combines
elements of films, music, live performing
and artworks.
Later they returned to Japan and made Kobe
the new base for kantera. and West Village.
Sadly there havent been any news on band activities
or new songs since 2015.
With kantera. we came to the end of this video.
I already have a topic for next weeks "Pick
5", but you can feel free to leave a request
for one of the future episodes.
Also make sure to let me know your "Pick 5"
of Japanese Progressive Metal in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did,
please leave me a like.
For more content about Japanese Music you
can subscribe to my channel or follow me on Twitter.
Thanks again for watching and have a great
day!
