BULL ZEICHEN 88

This is so good band that its worth mentioning after my long silence. (Another one would be DOLL$BOXX). If you have one band to get know this year it should be this. I was dissapointed not　finding them at JAME even they seem to have a quite of following and very experienced musicians in the band. So here I am to announce that they are one of the most interesting and best bands in todays Japanese music scene. It is my personal opinion but it is very heavy opinion and it is then THE truth.

Despite the suspicious 88 in their band name they give very good vibe on almost any song they have made. Good mix of solid playing, catchy melodies, humour and interesting mashup of many genres. They sound like they do and what they enjoy. That is BULL ZEICHEN 88 about.

My first impression of them was a raised eyebrow but then then I heard word "Yacchaina" so my cold hard heart melt down and I began to listen what they are offering to me. I found out that they sound like what hide was at his best in those few epic songs but these guys makes it just much better in every way and with tongue in cheek attitude. Therefor they are the best possible legacy of hide and handling it very well.

Here are couple of examples what these amazing musicians has to offer:

 

 

J'Arco

Still alive?

I am of course. Who would kill this ol' J-METARU fan?

I think I have mentioned or made it public information that  that I make music too.

Even this is not METAL METAL I introduce here my first ever real J-Rock song.  I think its very good and so should you think too.

There is only me playing here and my daughter gave her voice to some parts of the chorus.
This is made mostly in our living room and I think I recorded guitars in the bedroom. No fancy studio or professionals involved. Just one guy having fun and enjoying of making music.

Story behind the band name is something like this. It should be simple and easy and fit to Japanese language and have that ' in it. J'Arco = ジャルコ. We joked back in the1998 that lets make a  J-Rock band and record a single and sell a million and become rich because the drummer (who was actually a musician) looked so handsome that all the chicks buy it. But this song made back then is good so I wanted to make it a real song and share it more than the couple of friends taht say it is good just because they are my friends. Some of them may like this just because it makes you feel good. The song is intented to give hope and make you into happy mood.

Enjoy and it would be really cool to get some feedback.




And you can read the lyrics and download the official high quality version of it for free from here:

mereen.bandcamp.com

ADIZ

I know I stopped writing this blog. Still there is one good reason to post. A new band I found yesterday.

Its called ADIZ and I don't know much of them but that they make VERY original sounding music in Japans rock/metal scene. And that is enough to get me writing once more.

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)

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.

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.

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!

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?

Error II

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

 

new stuff from Shatter Silence

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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: