keskiviikko 21. syyskuuta 2011

KOR

Knights of Round is a band name that often pops up when surfing through j-metal sites. Their genre is power metal and very melodical one. Singer is good and playing usual high level of J-metal. So you know what you get. Double bass drums, twin leads, clean vocals. I really like it and one of the reasons is that I used to play exaclty similar style of music and will do in near future too ^_^ (stay "tuned" if you like bands like this)

sunnuntai 4. syyskuuta 2011

Chernoblank

I saw acoustic bass and image of metal band. This needs to be checked.

this is basic metal, nothing to complain. Worth checking out but was not any big thing for me. I liked most the rythm change in the middle and also groove part is nice.

perjantai 2. syyskuuta 2011

Karmachain

I have many times heard name of Karmachain but never heard any music of them. I also knew that SadeW (ex- Blood Stain Child) is the singer. They play very soft melodic music as _metal_ but singing makes this metal. Or not? It doesn't matter. It does that I like this song and its refreshed sound in JMetal. Very stylish music.

keskiviikko 31. elokuuta 2011

One More Metal Touhou - Stratiotes

My friends bandmate seems to have his own Touhou projec. It is good for my taste so please listen to some Stratioes. Good stuff from a drummer!

summer

Lately I have been busy with my own music and band so there hasn't been much interest to update this blog.

So I'm continuining same way for a while and gonna have better time enjoying the coming of the Autumn.

Goodbye summer!

keskiviikko 24. elokuuta 2011

Inhale - Sanctuary

Some times ago I ordered a demo from Inhale but due to some problems it never reached me. Maybe Japan post couldn't handle the hot hot demo package. Anyway one of the songs the demo is Sanctuary featuring the new vocalist Jeff.  I really like this song and even the demo quality is IMO very good. Better than some real records I own. Surely one of the best bands in Japan.



And what about the news from Sophias mixi page that said about the long European tour. You can't know how much I have waited this. Do I finally get the chance to see them 3rd time. Do they come to enough close to my country?

keskiviikko 17. elokuuta 2011

Error II

Error has released new mini album Vbleach. So you need to check out what they have recorded for us:

 



perjantai 1. heinäkuuta 2011

new stuff from Shatter Silence

Just read about this at Inhales guitarists mixi page. As he said catchy melodeath!! Listen it NOW!

maanantai 20. kesäkuuta 2011

YJM's of Japan

Japan has huge amount of guitarist many of them playing in cover bands. Some of them are awesome players and some of them making great covers and  makes original music that could be their idols own music. YJM is the guitar hero today. He is still big name in Japans since I have heard that there is dedicated rock bar for only to him. ^_^.

There are many YJM styli or neoclassical guitarist in Japan. On really good is Takayoshi Ohmura who I have already introduced here. But first to link today is a great fun guitarist I met at Mixi. Angchan plays sometimes live at ustream and also many videos on youtube. He also plays in YJM cover band Seventh Sign.

This is one of my favourite YJM covered by Angchan




And another artist introduced today is Katsu Ohta better known as a guitarist of Ark Storm. This is original music but its more YJM than YJM himself IMO

torstai 9. kesäkuuta 2011

BSC@ A-KON

BSC topic is perfect for today when they left the soil of Japan to fly to USA A-KON 2011. They released few days ago a new song from their new album at myspace. But as I though someone had already uploaded it into youtube.

tiistai 24. toukokuuta 2011

Marchen Station

Following Mixi 'Ashiato' brought me to the band Marchen Station. Its pure xa-metal 'kusa metaru'. Singer Leo Figaro is very good and maybe due to that he is also involved in some other bands/projects. Songs are pure xa-metal so you get what you expect. Excellent high speed guitar playing and orchestrations and melodic choruses.



torstai 19. toukokuuta 2011

Darkness Rose EP review

I heard about Darkness  Rose after the founding member Erica choose follow her own path from the band Sincerity Green. After getting the band going on they gave now released a debut EP. And I'm thankful that Erica was kind to send me a one so doing a review is the least I can do for them.

Darkness rose is five piece band from Tokyo playing symphonic gothic metal with some Finnish taste in it. I thought they uses support drummer in l their gigs but it was old information. They have got a drummer recently. For more inormation check their official site: www.darknessrose.com and listen to their music!

And the review itself.

EP starts with intro which raises the atmosphere to the first full song. At this part its clear that the sound quality is good. Balance between the instruments is mixed well and I like the way of using synths during the all songs.

Songs have dynamics in different parts. It is a sign of good songwriting and arrangement skills. So I'm sure that Darkness Rose members have quite much experience from the other bands before making this recording.

Female singing is done well and really well if compared to many bands in Japan.  Because there are some really bad ones even on the official recordings where even autotune/melodyne doesn't save the performance. But coming back to the topic  It would be nice to hear some male vocals on the next recording, may be in some choruses. It would bring the band to the next level. But that is only my wish and not a negative comment.

Highlight of the EP  fro me is the 4th track 'Dying Days' which begins with really cool melody continuing into the verse that has nice rythmic riffing. Rest of the song is as good so its very enjoyable. 

EP ends with a dramatic song which gives a promise that we'll here more about this band later. I think fans of Within Temptation and similar female fronted bands would spin this release quite often in their mp3 players. And I have to mention that Darkness Rose doesn't sound like WT but it tells that I'm not an expert in this genre.


EP:
Darkness Rose- s/t


Song list:
01. intro
02. The Prison Wall
03. Army Brain
04. Dying Day
05. Nobody Warms

Thank you for reading my first EP/CD review ever. It'd be cool to get some comment if you want to get more of this kind of posts or any other comments about this blog. I'd like to kno if you would like to see just new pv's or e-mail interviews or just this same thing I've been doing halfly motivated?

tiistai 17. toukokuuta 2011

Error

This is Osaka based core band playing happy music. Just another band showing high quality of the metal scene in Japan.


More info from their official site: www.errorsite.jp



And if you haven't yet heard about BSC's next album'ε psilon' its release day is 15th June 2011 and here is the small version of the album artwork.


keskiviikko 11. toukokuuta 2011

Jui & Diabolos Radio

Jui plays hard rock and is really cool guy and rocking hard in the indie scene.

I don't know how long he has involved in the Jrock scene but I saw him playing live first time  in 1993! But he is like a senpai for me since I know him personally. Even its ages we have met face to face.




This is his older music, really happy song that makes me alwasy smile.

maanantai 25. huhtikuuta 2011

My Music Life

404NOT FOUND has released a new single.  Sounds quite mainstream me but because the quality is top notch its only a good thing. Good happy song to the spring!

torstai 14. huhtikuuta 2011

130311 afterlife

Life goes on and death is still so close. We never know whats ahead us. 130311 was a big shock even for years been talk about  that the big earthquake will strike Japan. It took time to get back into normal life even living so far away from Japan. So I took time off from this blog. But now I want to share one link to the site that gives me hope because I see it in these posters:

Iwate Posters

Song for today is Each For The Days. I know only this clip about them and the fact that they play live with Inhale soon. That's where I found the band name.


And then interesting news that Ryu has been hinting many times in his blog. Now its official. I knew only that it is a super secret project with Ettori of the Coroner records. Good suprise that it was a theme compliation album called Princess Ghibli which is in the shops now:
 

lauantai 12. maaliskuuta 2011

Icarus' Cry

I don't know how these guys has so much time. This is another band of Unlucky Morpheus' Yukimura and I know there is at least one more playing more extreme music.
As the name Yukimura promises guitar playing is top notch and joy to listen.

If you like metal touhou doujin music. This is to you.

torstai 10. maaliskuuta 2011

Infection

Be ready to headbang. Infection plays modern metal with downtuned guitars with heavy distorted tone. But as a good suprise that's not all they have in sleeves. Rythm changes makes their newly published song very promising and this must be a good live band. Thanks for their member leaving "ashiato" to my mixi page.

tiistai 8. maaliskuuta 2011

Davitz

Davitz presents also not so hard modern softer metal music. I give thumbs up that they are not using autotune/moledyne! Its so rare to hear normal vocals so why to care some small pitch problems (or maybe I just have too accurate ear). But DAvits as good groove and sound a bit more unique than some other bands. Hope to hear how they'll progress from this point in future.

sunnuntai 6. maaliskuuta 2011

Lightning / Sum Rize

There was a band Lightning which I have never heard but as suggested on twitter I checked band Sum Rize which is their new name. I expected this to be some kind of core but was suprised to hear clean singing and twin lead guitars. Melodic metal = good.

perjantai 4. maaliskuuta 2011

Umberbrown

And then back to more poppish sound with these emo kids. Umberbrown doesn't deliver so much originality but their music is melodic, cathcy, singed well (also pronunciation) and played withouth anything bad to say.

I'm sure fans of this kind of music are satisfied.



And yes I tagged also this as j-metal.

torstai 3. maaliskuuta 2011

Iron Attack

This doujin group mixes cover parts to their touhou arrangements. I like this combination quite much. Only I could hope is that their sound quality would be slightly better but I can live with this stuff without any changes.

This one has plenty of YJM parts with ultramelodic touhou!

perjantai 18. helmikuuta 2011

Dragon Guardian

Dragon Guardian is doujin band of Yuusha Arthur. Music has usually featuring musicians with familiar names from other circles. Dragon Guardian presents high quality Xa Metal of Japan. Its symphonic, fast, well played, well composed and having japanese narrative speech in songs. This was one of the first doujin bands I found outbut for some reason I have forgot to introduce them.

Dragon Guardian has released four albums and two EP's. So very productive band. If you like powermetal or bands like Rhapsody of Fire this is your music!

tiistai 15. helmikuuta 2011

Black Mage

How many has become Japan fanatic via anime or games? Those who played games of DQ or FF series might know Black Mages. Its the band of Nobuo Uematsu the keyboard wizard and the great great composer. Black Mages plays game music arranged to the band instruments and they do it as well as anyone can do it. As a genre this is closer to the hard rock than metal but who cares.

torstai 10. helmikuuta 2011

Liv Moon

Liv Moon is releasing their second album 16th March and JVC Music has put some stuff on their site and also PV of New Song: Shi no Butou ~Dies Irae~



Other stuff that you can watch on JVC site are here: www.jvcmusic.co.jp/livmoon/

maanantai 7. helmikuuta 2011

Yousei Teikoku

I found this band recently and its fun that I have never heard about anything about them. Just because they seem to be really active and have so many pv's on youtube too.

Music is awesome but I canät decide if I like or not the vocals. They are so hmm. No words to desrcibe. You have to listen yourself and make own judgement to like or not.

lauantai 5. helmikuuta 2011

Time warp to 90's (hard rock vids)

to older days.

Wands - Same Side not so metal but really good song that was totally new sounding Wands. Nice memories comes into mind every time I hear this.



B'z - Samayou Aoi Dangan. Just really good Hard Rock song.




Siam Shade - 1/3 Junjou Na Kanjou (^_^) song. Listen to nice guitar playing too.

keskiviikko 2. helmikuuta 2011

Some new music videos

Within few days I saw tweet about Area51's new PV so I listened it. Quite good song.



Also Ancient Myth has released new PV some times ago:



Light Bringer has published first PV from album Resistance:



Then I heard from the bassist of Darkness Rose that they are releasing their first EP which I'm really looking for.

I read from Takayoshi Ohmura's mixi that Liv Moon has shoot a PV too. Must be the first single from their new cd. Takayoshi is also touring soon with Marty Friedman but not coming near where I live. I really wish to see them playing together some day.

sunnuntai 30. tammikuuta 2011

Crow's Claw

Doujin ftw! Taka the man behind sure has excellent drum programming skills as Pizuya said to me. I really like how this song is balanced. Pure doujin metal so you already know what to expect.

lauantai 29. tammikuuta 2011

Save The Queen

This is the circle with the most famous member Shibiki from Blood Stain Child. I knew he was into this kind of stuff but for some reason I have missed this part of his career. Good quality touhou with very interesting vocalist in this arrangement.

torstai 27. tammikuuta 2011

Saber Tiger

I had to learn a lesson from J-Metal today. When clicked link to Saber Tiger song I tought this is the same band hide played. But it was different band from Sapporo even genre is quite close to the hide's band. Yes I should have known that there is another band with the same name but I'm lucky I now know this band too.

The song I Introduce here is from early 90's and I have to say that they is amazing in every aspect. Something that I really need to get into my hand on a real CD.



Here is another great progressive technical song. Vocals are not perfect but this was before autotune and its better this way. Akihito Kinoshita, you're TENSAI!



And for last words. Got to respect any band making music for over 25 years. They are still active and rocking hard!

torstai 20. tammikuuta 2011

AFTERZERO

Afterzero says that they plays Progressive Extreme Pure Metal. I think its quite accurate. Definately pure metal, not artificial additions like keyboards. Unfortunately I don't find them very progressive. At least drumming soudn quite straight for me but it isn't bad at all.

I didn't find much information on this band. They have started in 2005 and had some member changes played gigs and released few demos and the first album in August 2010. From Audioleaf I got informatipon that they are from Tokyo. Anyway pure metal from Japan!

keskiviikko 12. tammikuuta 2011

Shatter Silence

They have played melodic core metal from 2008. On more band from Osaka so it seems that metal scene is very active there!



Also interesting news from Inhale camp. They have updated new song to their audioleaf site with new vocalist Jeff's singing. Really good song and must to check. Inhale has gained level up which is impressive to any band being already so good.

Inhale@audioleaf

perjantai 7. tammikuuta 2011

Bellfast

Its nice feeling to find a new interesting band but this time feeling was different. Of course there are pagan/fol metal band in Japan. Still I was suprised. Most Japanese bands have "J-vibe" in their music but Bellfast sounded like a band from Europe! They sound so different from any other J-metal band I've heard so far in my life. Nice guitar solos are good addition for the music.

keskiviikko 5. tammikuuta 2011

Serpent

Serpent is (was) quite typical melodic death metal band. Even its typical it also means it really good in the genre. I like melodies and Serpent is strong with melodies. Its very sad that they disbanded but the guitarist Ken does have a new band called Veiled In Scarlet which sounds really promising! There is one really cool demo song available at their myspace: Veiled In Scarlet There was also news telling that their debut CD is now half ready and release might be summer 2011!

But back to Serpent. This is their song Plastic Arts:

maanantai 3. tammikuuta 2011

Jigoku Quartet

This is just awesome thrashy technical metal! They reminds just little bit Sex Machineguns but are much harder and heavier. But even some vibes from various genres and bands they are very unique with their cool own sound. Jigoku Quartet consist very good musicians and extremely good vocalist. Amazing! Guitarist seems to be that dude with the guitar book (jigokuno mechanical training) that I've read many times about. That explains the high level skills. Other members seems to be very experienced too since bands like Aion, Canta, Kuroyume, Animetal pops up from their music career.

I wish I could have embedded the song Tsumi To Batsu No Sen but you have to stick with this or find other songs from youtube. But this is cool too and has a bass solo (O_o) too:

 
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