Beat Laments The World

A metal-infused take on Japan & music

Obviously spurred on by Henkka’s last couple of posts, Momoclo have decided to join in the action with their wonderful new rearrangement of that Christmas Bside called Santasan on their previous single, Roudou Sanka (also worth a listen if you’re into Kinniku Shoujotai or The Go! Team, as Ohtsuki Kenji wrote the lyrics and Ian Parton did the music).

Anyway, here is the “Bloody Christmas” version of Santasan:

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Straight from the start, bells and doomyness remind of Sabbath, but more evilly of a group called Legions of Crows from my hometown of Salisbury who release Christmas songs every year. Doom Metal Christmas songs. Sometimes featuring Paul Di’anno, but I digress. Having jingle bells la’d over the top is hilarious. Then death metal as fuck. Blastbeats and heavy riffs. Then Momoclo vocals being happy and cute over it… This is a niche market that I think could work, need to look into it.

Honestly, this puts Babymetal to shame. And everything on my Top 50 Metal Idol Songs list. Even has a random death grunt in here somewhere. Riffs are actually pretty cool death metal riffs, with a hint of groove at points. Hint of a black metal riff somewhere, but still, this just takes everything idols have been slowly building up to for the past couple of years and melds it all in together. Under a Christmas song.

I think no one would be too pissed off if I said this is more metal than Cannibal Corpse.

Then Santa starts raping and murdering the girls or something, while death grunting “hohoho”. Completely “wtf” and “rofl” at the same time. Honestly can’t think of what more to write because I’m still too busy being in awe at how amazing it is and then giggling at the silliness of it all.

Of course, this being Momoclo no doubt they’re giggling at the silliness of it all too, but then again, on their upcoming next single that’s out in March, “Mouretsu Uchuu Koukyoukyoku Dainana Gakushou ‘Mugen no Ai’” (if you wondered, this means something like “Violent Universe Symphony, Seventh Movement ‘Infinite Love’”, just proving their psycho status even further) they have Marty Friedman playing guitar, and it sounds something like a cross between Nightwish’s choirs, Megadeth’s guitar playing (as you’d expect), random Jpop, bit of Queen, Blind Guardian and some random Vis Kei with added syncopation in the chorus. If you click this within the next two weeks it might still be on youtube. So I’m guessing that despite the ever growing encroachments of Kpop and that generic “sound”, Jpop’s obsession with metal and general genre-fuckery isn’t quite over yet.

Thank fuck.

So, Henkka’s last two posts about metal idols were good. But I’m going to try and top it.

Meet BiS, the new shock rockersidols in town. They seem to be ultimate in underground (the fact that they’ve appeared on Tsuntube lends credence to this theory, as before that program I’d heard of The Possible and Shinozaki Ai’s tits, now I know more idol groups than subspecies of lizards), yet their production is unusually above the level where underground pop generally dwells.

They seem to have been formed when a bored female Jrocker called pour lui got even more bored with the shit she was releasing, and decided to form an idol group. Thus, BiS. At least BiS doesn’t have quite as terrible a use of autotune. (Yes, I’m aware not all of Pour Lui’s songs were that shit. But hell…)

But yes, just to whet your appetite I’ll give you the first BiS PV I’ll link to. It features headbanging. It also features high octane lesbianism that would make t.A.t.U proud. More on that later.

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Picking up right where we left off last time, meet BABYMETAL.

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“Heavy metal idol group?! Devil-worshipping?! Stagediving?! Are you serious!?” I’m absolutely serious. Well, not about the devil-worshiping part though. That’s something I made up. Anyway, I literally just found out about them under an hour ago and this post serves both as a post to introduce them to you and to me. Without further ado… meet Pureful.

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Been a while since a song has came along and truly messed with my mind in a way that I could class it as a FAKSM, so allow me to present a song that did it to me a while back.

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Some background, Meza Virs is a group from Singapore, that veritable melting pot of just about every influence and culture ever. I was introduced to their music by my fellow admin on Chthonic’s forums, who wanted to show me that Singapore could do this kind of thing too. I listened to it and found myself blown away. He had been rather correct.

This can be classed as the last Gothic/Symphonic metal song I actually really enjoyed in its own right. While Chthonic’s Seediq Bale and Mirror of Retribution albums were good, they worked as albums more than a collection of songs. Likewise with Cradle, though I’ve not enjoyed them since Thornography anyway. I’m not sure entirely why I like it so much though. Or maybe I do. The song goes from generic symphonic metal stuff into a low industrial-esque hum with the (frankly rubbish) male vocalist “growling” (talking in a strained voice) on top. Then a piano breakdown and some triphop elements. And then into the highlight, more symphonic metal with the most awesome pop vocal melody ever. The drums are restrained, the bass is barely audible, but it’s awesome. Then come the black metal-esque tremolo riffs, which are also cool. The clean guitar bit is next, and that’s also fucking awesome. Then it’s back to the pop melody. It makes me hard.

So yea. FAKSM. Though more a FAKS of a few years ago. But still, it’s awesome.