JPU Records is proud to announce that it will be releasing i’mperfect, the ground-breaking new album from Japanese sensation Ling tosite sigure (pronounced Rin Tosh-teh Shi-goo-reh).
The album made its debut in Japan’s Oricon album chart today, smashing into fourth position. The news that it will be coming to Europe – the group’s first release outside of Japan – has already made the news across Japan’s major music and entertainment press, including MTV Japan, Yahoo! and Natalie.
Hailing from Saitama, just north of Tokyo, the trio has managed to smash through the country’s notorious indie rock scene to become one of the most talked about new bands of the decade. Their ferocious yet beautiful arrangements feature sharp and technical guitar work; thick, distorted basslines; and aggressively progressive beats set against haunting, intertwined male-female vocals. It all contributes to i’mperfect being one of the most refreshing, unique and powerful albums of the year.
TRACKLIST:
1. Beautiful Circus (<-click for the music video)
2. abnormalize (<-click for the music video)
3. Metamorphose
4. Filmsick Mystery
5. Sitai miss me
6. make up syndrome (album mix)
7. MONSTER
8. KIMITOOKU (キミトオク)
9. Missing ling
Release Date: 24 June 2013 Formats: CD and MP3 Territory: the UK, Europe and Russia Pre-order From:Amazon UK, Amazon DE, (more stores coming soon)
To celebrate the release Ling tosite sigure’s official Youtube channel has been opened up to international fans for the first time. Check it out by clicking here.We’ll leave you with the music video to their smash hit single abnormalize, which is also used as the opening theme to hot new anime series PSYCHO PASS.
Premier rockers ONE OK ROCK will embark on their long-awaited European tour this October courtesy of Speakeasy and B7klan! Fusing elements of emo, heavy metal and pop-rock, the band have gone on from playing small-time concerts in 2005, to sold out arena shows across Japan.
Their latest album Jinsei × Boku = is out now on iTunes (click here to buy it from the UK store) and contains tracks mixed by John Feldmann (producer/engineer of The Used, Panic! at the Disco), and Danish engineer Tue Madsen (“The Beginning”). Plus, the band also had an opportunity to work with multiple Grammy award-winning engineer Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Avril Lavigne, Hoobastank) in the final stage of the album production, securing ONE OK ROCK with the trademarked sound incorporating western rock with the flair of the Japanese.
Anyway, enough about that. You’re here for the tour dates after all. Whack these beauties in your calenders;
Thu 24 October 2013 – Werkstatt, Cologne, Germany.
Sat 26 October 2013 – The Garage, London, UK.
Sun 27 October 2013 – Bataclan, Paris, France.
Tickets will be available from 1 June on b7klan’s homepage at 10AM: http://www.b7klan.com/ we’re guessing that’s B7klan’s local time, so 9AM for those in the UK!
We’ll leave you with one of our favourite videos from the band:
Get ready for a night of mayhem in the company of some of Japan’s finest rockers. Japan Underground has finally finished mopping up the sweat from our last hard rock party, which featured one of east’s finest post-hardcore artists, FACT (check out this video for a glimpse of what went down that night). Now we’re back with a showcase set featuring THREE rock acts that we guarantee will melt your mind. Plus our usual DJ piling on the rockiest, heaviest and all out coolest tracks from Japan for your pleasure. Just get a load of this line-up:
BRAIN DEATH ZOMBIE
To weigh down our rock, we have called upon Kobe’s newest metal outfit BRAIN DEATH ZOMBIE (pictures above). Looming from the shadows of doom metal, and inspired from the likes of Korn, SCREW, DIR EN GREY and alt. noise makers Pay money To my pain, this band bring a unique, artist and deeply haunting edge to the evening’s proceedings. Here’s a preview clip we used for their first ever overseas show earlier in the year:
TAIGEN KAWABE (FROM BO NINGEN)
When he’s not fronting one of the hottest names in psychedelic rock, Bo Ningen, Taigen Kawabe is busy crafting music on his own. Armed with a bass, impressively long hair and an effect pedal, he becomes a one man army of mind melting sound. Some have likened his solo work to a spiritual experience. So fittingly, here’s a video of his band in action. In a church. Taigen Kawabe, we’re not worthy.
COLORS
Bringing the 80s back! London-based Japanese rock outfit COLORS borrows influences from many genres of music. It’s front man Kenji loves British punk, new wave and old skool visual kei, while other members take inspiration from heavy metal, pop and even a bit of a good old drum ‘n’ bass. They recorded their first music video last year, get your leathers out and have a gander.
It’s been seven long years since major Visual Kei band, NIGHTMARE very successfully brough their two albums Libido and Anima to Europe, but they are finally back. Their new album, SCUMS, releases all over Europe today; available on iTunes, Amazon and (ding ding ding!) CD.
Just for one moment, let us have a little reminiscence of days gone by. Days when I used to scavenge CD stalls for Visual Kei. Barely ever lucky (never lucky), but always looking anyway. And then one day, behold! NIGHTMARE CDs! A shining light in the darkness for the impoverished teenage Visual Kei fan. Those two albums, Libido and Anima, still sit on my CD shelf now, valuable as the first European released Japanese CDs I ever owned.
Luckily, sentimental value is not the only value NIGHTMARE CDs have either, they also sound pretty good.
Nightmare have not been slacking in their time away from Europe. With 13 years experience at the top of their game, NIGHTMARE have some impressive credentials. Made famous internationally for their musical contributions to the anime Death Note, the band have become a serious institution, and in recent years they have continued to experiment freely. This album follows their usual path of baseline metal, piled on with funk and jazz elements along with gigantic vocals (ironic, as their vocalist stands a mere four feet in height).
The lead track for the album, ASSaulter, not only has a suspicious name, but also has some strange keyboard accompaniment, and an even stranger music video – which you can sample below if you really want to. However, once things get going, I promise they get better. In fact, they get better immediately with their single from this time last year, Mimic. This not only provides a much better music video, but also less weird synth and some nifty guitar. This up and down quality has existed on every NIGHTMARE album I’ve ever heard; brilliance and strangeness mix together to produce an album which is constantly changing direction.
It’s a very long album though, and there are a lot of very bright highlights. There’s Riddle, which contains some very interesting experiments with electro and ska elements. DISSEMBLE goes hard and fast with impressive rhythmic guitar and some super high-speed drumming. Amongst the softer, more toned down tracks, it really stands out. Deus ex Machina, which was a recent single, is another stand-out. There’s some great harmony between guitar and vocals and the melody is very uplifting. The track which stood out the most though, is 404, which is right slap bang in the middle of the album. Packed full of jazzy riffs and a load of electronic accompaniments, this song is the bounciest, most feel good thing on this album. Vocal participation by all band members is required and the overall effect is set off by an outstanding funk filled bass line.
NIGHTMARE use all their many talents to the full. If they have the faintest desire to make a song which sounds like it has jumped straight out a Disney movie, they will make it (and have, in fact, check out I’m not). If they want to make a pumping hardcore party metal track, they will also do that (Behind The Mask). This whole album has a cheerful sense of freedom about it, like they piled one project on top of another until – tah dah – an album appeared.
So if you need an album in your daily life which contains a great variety of music, lots of fun and no small amount of talent, you should probably buy this one. And who doesn’t need that album?
Title: SCUMS Tracklist:
1. My name is “SCUM” (1:37)
2. ASSaulter (3:43)
3. Mimic (3:49)
4. Riddle (3:48)
5. Ame to Yoru ni Ochite (5:44)
6. DISSEMBLE (3:31)
7. ERRORs (3:41)
8. Owaru Sekai no Hajimari ha Kinari (4:22)
9. Droid (4:32)
10. 404 (4:35)
11. I’m not (5:12)
12. Deus ex machina (4:25)
13. Black Out (3:59)
14. Behind The Mask (4.03)
Japan’s best progressive metallers, DIR EN GREY are releasing their new mini-album, THE UNRAVELING simultaneously in Japan and Europe today on OKAMI Records. The album contains seven tracks in the digital version, and better yet, there will be a physical edition released across Europe in the very near future which will contain four more tracks.
Just two months after the release of their last single, RINKAKU, this album continues to flex the bands’ muscles style wise. With a heavy, complex sound this mini-album is a good continuation from their last full album DUM SPIRO SPERO and strong follow up to the surprisingly gentle RINKAKU. Lead track, Unraveling is especially impressive with some brilliant guitar leads and a deceptively simple melody.
There is a perfect balance with this album between frantic heaviness and more solemn, slower tracks. The second track, KARMA, is super hardcore with a drum rhythm like a bulldozer and deep, speedy guitar. In contrast, other songs are more gentle and have cleaner vocals, or a mixture of both within one track. There is also a mixture of styles, alternating drum-heavy, bass-heavy and guitar-lead tracks, which prevents the standard metal procedure of one song running into the next. At one point, there is even a strange dive into some very mellow accoustic guitar (Unknown.Dispair.Lost), but it soon tumbles down very quickly into some glorious dark and sticky metal once more.
Constant changes in tempo and style make this album. Another shining features is the grand finale, a re-recording of the 2004 single THE FINAL. Unlike their re-recording of Kiri to Mayu on their last single, this re-recording is not a complete re-working but rather the band seem to have gone to some lengths to recreate the style of the original recording. As THE FINAL is one of the greatest tracks in DIR EN GREY’s discography, it’s amazing to hear it given this new lease of life.
After their year of silence in 2012, DIR EN GREY seem to be making a very impressive comeback, bursting back onto the scene with a cascade of great music.
The physical CD release promises to bring a further four tracks of awesome, and don’t forget that DIR EN GREY will also be touring Europe in June with a UK appearance at DOWNLOAD Festival.
Title: The Unraveling
Tracklist:
1. Unraveling (4.42)
2. KARMA (3.43)
3. KASUMI (4.08)
4. KARASU (5.36)
5. Bottom of the death valley (6.25)
6. Unknown.Dispair.Lost (4.47)
7. THE FINAL (4.15)
JPU Records is proud to announce that it will be releasing i’mperfect, the ground-breaking new album from Japanese sensation Ling tosite sigure (pronounced Rin Tosh-teh Shi-goo-reh).
TRACKLIST:
Title: SCUMS
