Beat Laments The World

A metal-infused take on Asian music & other stuff

That’s right, the new Ikimono Gakari PV Kimagure Romantic was just uploaded on JPopSuki and after the slightly lackluster Planetarium (review pending), we’ve gotten ourselves another FUCKING AWESOME Iki song and I think many will agree what is also their most entertaining PV to date! Check it out:

Awesome! I was afraid it was going to be a boring Christmas song but thankfully Iki didn’t disappoint, instead giving us something that has potential for quickly becoming my top favorite by them. Something completely different in terms of both the song and the PV as compared to Planetarium, we’ve gotten another high-tempo Iki rocker complete with a YMCK-produced Nintendo influenced look. And what the hell, there’s even a dance choreography happening. What the hell is going on here?!

Hotaka and Yoshiki are there of course and are much more involved than previously, just rocking out in whichever outfits they’ve got on. Hotaka is such a cool fucker with his hair and his awesomely awkward dance moves, and Yoshiki gets mad props from me for actually writing most of the songs. I’ve said it loads of times before and I’ll say it again… Kiyoe is so gosh darn CUTE. I can’t get over her cuteness! I mean fuck, it’s one thing to be cute but never before has she actually made me laugh out loud several times due to how adorable she is!

And you will, too. Just when you thought Aya Matsuura or Ikimono Gakari couldn’t get any better?

That’s right, your eyes aren’t failing you. It’s Ikimono Gakari + Aya Matsuura performing the same song… AT THE SAME TIME. I’m baffled. And not just any goddamn song, it’s Sotsugyou motherfuckin’ Shashin!:

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Perfume – love the world

Release date: 2008/07/09

Tracklist:

1. love the world
2. edge
3. love the world (instrumental)
4. edge (extended mix)

You know, I have to be honest with you even if it means you’ll hate me (people wanted to damn near slaughter CJ after his less-than-enthusiastic review of GAME). I’m a rather new fan of Perfume, only finding out about them after Polyrhythm but before Baby Cruising Love. Things started really going well for Perfume after the release of Baby Cruising Love and especially during the release of GAME… quite honestly, things started going TOO well for them. Anyone remember that certain appeal Perfume lost after everyone and their grandma started loving them and calling them the best thing to happen to J-pop in years?

Brace yourself, what I’m about to say might shock you: Perfume is overrated. *gasp!* And when I say overrated, I mean REALLY fuckin’ overrated. There, I said it. CJ was right on in his review of GAME. It does get old real fast, the Perfume sound. It sounded so fresh the first time around, but it is used over and over and over again in their music until I’m bored to tears. They are good, but geez, they aren’t THAT good.

Now, I’m not childish enough to hate a group just because everyone else loves them. Of course not, that’d be silly. That’s irrelevant and not the real issue here. Still though, while everyone else started loving them more and more, raving about them endlessly, I found myself not caring about them at the same increasing pace. Needless to say, GAME was a disappointment to me and love the world continues in the same vein. Nakataka Yasuka gave them exactly the kind of single you’d expect from Perfume. It’s catchy, once again featuring heavy usage of vocoders and it has the trademark Perfume technopop sound. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, you decide. As for me? It’s boring and too safe. A rehash.

One could say Perfume is simply a group you either love or hate. That’d be flattering them; I simply don’t care about them. The post-Baby Cruising Love Perfume anyway. I will continue giving them the benefit of the doubt and checking all their future releases without any prejudice towards them. I sincerely hope for something to catch my interest and make me a fan again. In the mean time, though, I’ll happily await the day when their much too excessive fame will finally start dwindling down and others will understand they’ve gotten old much too fast.

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Release date: 2008/02/13

Tracklisting:

1. Good Morning
2. Akaneiro no Yakusoku
3. Natsuzora Graffiti
4. Seishun Line
5. @miso soup
6. Soprano
7. Hana wa Sakura Kimi wa Utsukushi
8. Chikoku Shichau yo
9. Kokoro Hitotsu Arugamama
10. Nisemono
11. Tokyo Saru Monogatari
12. Tsuki to Atashi to Reizouko
13. Akaneiro no Yakusoku (acoustic version)

If you’re still refusing to listen to these guys because they had a song or two as the opening/ending theme of the anime Bleach, then cut that shit out! Right now! I’m serious, stop that shit right this instant because Ikimono Gakari is back after nearly a year since their previous offering to bring us the second batch of their trademark Ikimono goodness!

If you don’t know them yet (you should though, if you’ve been reading my blog!), what you can expect from this album is again a healthy mix of heartwarming ballads and feel good happy songs, catchy choruses that will stick with you for a long time, shitloads of harmonica and most importantly excellent female vocals provided by the adorable miss Kiyoe. Among other things.

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Like the title implies, I’ll now introduce you to 10 Japanese bands or artists that I feel will – if you start listening to them – make you lead a much happier and better life in every possible way. Yep. These are all aside from H!P groups of course. This post is, by the way, a complete ripoff from fellow blogger HarimaKenji’s recent post, I got his permission however, so it’s ok. :) At least I don’t bring up any of the same bands as he did!
None of them are “underground” or “indie” really, I’d say they are all quite well known at least in their respective genres and you should be able to find their releases from your Japanese music retail store of choice, or if you are like me and want to “try before you buy”, Jpopsuki and such torrent sites. Still, maybe you don’t know or listen to quite everything in this list, and thus I’d be happy if I can get even one person to listen to one or two of these artists.

Acid Black Cherry

Starting off with this great newcomer. Since I wrote some about them in my previous post already, I’ll just shamelessly go ahead and paste it here (with a couple of changes):

If you didn’t know already, Acid Black Cherry is the solo project of yasu from Janne Da Arc, however that’s not how I got to know them; I got introduced to them through Yuki, a guitarist who is a guest in this project (he plays guitar for them live and also on the Black Cherry single) and it just so happens that Yuki was also the guitar player of what is probably my favorite j-rock band (check the last band on this list) and he’s also the guitar player of DUSTAR-3 (also featured on this list).

In any case, this band is just excellent. Very original stuff and yasu is a pretty unique sounding singer, though arguably annoying sounding to some. Well, love him or hate him, he’s a talented vocalist all the same. So far they only have 3 singles out; their 4th one called Fuyu no Maboroshi is coming out in January and their debut album on February 13th. Can’t wait.

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