Coffins - Buried Death

by Cosmo Lee

Since 1996, Tokyo's Coffins have honed an instantly recognizable blend of death and doom metal. Other bands have similar girth and fuzz, but few have such command over momentum. One gets the image of a massive mecha machine building up a head of steam. Commonly cited reference points include Autopsy, Winter, and Hellhammer (including copious Tom G. Warrior "Ooh!"s), though I like Coffins most when they shift into a sort of one and half gear between death and doom. It's a simple oompah that's so primal and right. "Altars in Gore" is basically the "Peter Gunn" theme as a hammering two-step. "Under the Stench" begins with Godflesh's Godzilla stop-motion stomp, then lumbers into an inexorable AT-AT Walker trudge. Chris Moyen, responsible for Coffins' other lids, outdoes himself with a graveyard that contains a canny tombstone reference: "Mary Westmacott, 1890-1976." That's Agatha Christie - well-played. Both the CD and LP come in gatefold packaging; the latter includes a poster, with the first 200 mailorder copies adding a patch and stickers. 20 Buck Spin really stepped it up a notch here.

Altars in Gore
Under the Stench

Buy:
20 Buck Spin

Terror Squad - Chaosdragon Rising

Throw NWOBHM, Voivod, Eddie Van Halen, and '70s prog into a blender, and you'd get Terror Squad. The Tokyo thrashers beat the NY rappers to the name by six years, but Chaosdragon Rising (Worldchaos, 2006) is the first I've heard from them. It blows me away. Any band that cites Bulldozer, Converge, and friggin' Jake E. Lee as influences deserves a look. The guitarists seemingly got their chops solely from '80s guitar magazines; they're probably well-versed in Steve Vai's work with David Lee Roth. They can do ripping thrash and even a little grindcore, but they also let loose jazz fusion licks that betray higher learning. At 1:45, "Helldozer" goes into straight-up '70s Rush - dig how the guitar harmonies blossom left and right - then says, "Fuck that" at 2:09 and returns to MC5 riffs. The singer even makes like Stooges-era Iggy Pop; "We Bite" also has Stooges-esque saxophone skronk. "Fight Forever," too, takes a prog breather before reloading its thrash machine gun. I haven't felt such raw, snotty energy since I heard Kill 'Em All. Bonus points for the most amazing album artwork I've seen in years - it's Hokusai gone metal. Each song has its own artwork (16 panels in total), and the whole thing feels like a Japanese comic book. You can see some of the images here.

Fight Forever
Helldozer

Chaosdragon Rising is available from The End.

Mono - Yearning

I have a yoga teacher who starts her classes with forced meditation. It's forced because nowadays, it's almost impossible for minds - mine, at least - to be still. She tells us to empty our minds, and makes us sit...and sit...and sit...and sit... Of course, my mind refuses to empty. In fact, it goes into overdrive. It's cold in here. I've got work to do. Why is this taking so long? By the end of meditation, I'm ready to leap out of my skin and strangle her.

Yearning

Mono can be like that. This Japanese band builds long, achingly patient songs. They're incredibly, and sometimes frustratingly, dynamic. Their quiet parts often can't cut through the din of everyday life, like office machinery and street noise. But if you turn up the quiet parts, you risk getting blown out by the loud parts. Classical recordings work this way, too.

Thus, Mono are best heard in isolation, either in headphones or live. They're loud, yet demand intimacy. I saw them open for Pelican; their mini-tornadoes of sound got lost in the huge concert hall. Later, I saw them open for High on Fire in a club, and they were brilliant. Such a pairing might seem odd, but Mono held their own.

"Yearning" shudderingly climaxed that set. Like most Mono songs, it started small. I knew where it was going - but that doesn't make cars headed for cliffs any less thrilling. After a bulbously pregnant pause, everything crashed in. It was a K.O. Hit between the eyes, I saw colors. Lights flashed, hair flew, balls shook. Mono kept swinging away, clawing at strings with black metallic heat. (Wolves in the Throne Room came to mind.) I was horripilating like crazy.

The studio version of "Yearning" on Gone: A Collection of EPs 2000-2007 ably captures this power. That's engineer Steve Albini saying, "You're rolling" at the beginning. Make time to sit still through its 15 minutes. It will reward your patience.

Gone is available from Relapse, Interpunk, and The End.

Hayaino Daisuki - Headbanger's Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire

Holy crap! This shit is insane! It's Jon Chang from Discordance Axis! Over '80s thrash and power metal! At twice the speed! Evidently, "Hayaino Daisuki" is Japanese for "I love speed"! I'd believe it! Only one guy in this band is Japanese! The guy from Mortalized! But their MySpace says they're from Kyoto! But Metal Archives says they're from Hoboken, NJ! Not nearly as glamorous! If Dragonforce played grindcore, it might sound like this! It's like drinking 10 Red Bulls! And washing them down with a Twinkie! It's a complete sugar rush! I can't stop listening to it! It's like those super-fast "TV" songs from Ministry! But four in a row! I've listened to this at least 10 times today! Easily! Not good for my high blood pressure! It's only $9 from Hydra Head! And $3.89 from Amazon digitally! Decibel described it as, "Slayer if the vocals sounded like the scream on 'Angel of Death' all the time"! That sold me instantly! You buy now, too!

Horobit Monogatari

Birushanah - Akai Yami

Birushanah are one of the stranger bands I've come across. Even at 924 Gilman St., an intimate venue that reduces icons to mortals, they puzzled me. Their setup consisted of drums, fretless bass, guitar, vocals, and makeshift oil drum percussion. Songs were long and intricate, yet seemingly randomly thrown together. Vocals teetered between yowling and singing. The two drum kits pounded out mighty unisons, yet I couldn't lock onto their grooves. Out of this din popped fretless bass slides and chords. It was one of those "what the hell was that" experiences that leave one vaguely pleased.

Akai Yami (excerpt)

Even in the isolation of my home, Birushanah still baffle me. "Doom" would be the closest genre. But with percussion having equal (if not greater) weight with guitar, Birushanah are nowhere near as heavy as fellow Osakians Corrupted. In staggering gait, Khanate could be a reference point, but Birushanah have more overt method behind the madness. Their trademark is subdividing eight-beat phrases into groups of three and five (13- and 17-beat phrases also crop up). The initial three feels familiar, as 3/4 time is common in metal. But the following five feels foreign; my body just doesn't move in 5/4.

In between these odd grooves are melodic bass mutterings and Japanese acoustic bits. I don't know much about traditional Japanese music, but those tonalities seem to dominate the riffing. I think I also heard a koto at one point. (You can play a virtual koto here, and a virtual shamisen here.) Even though Akai Yami sounds unstructured, it's actually tightly scripted. After a short intro, two massive tracks chew up 20 and 17 minutes, respectively. The tracks are more like suites, with discrete passages adding up to a whole. It's rare that a band so organically melds its native sounds with metal.

Akai Yami is available from Level Plane, Relapse, and Interpunk.

Grief of War - A Mounting Crisis...

By most standards, Grief of War would be "retro thrash." They formed in 2002; in 2005, they put out their first record, A Mounting Crisis...As Their Fury Got Released, which Prosthetic recently reissued. Such timing would put them at the beginning of today's wretched retro thrash trend. However, I'll give them a pass since they're from Tokyo. I suspect that retro thrash was engineered during a meeting of white hi-top manufacturers in a shadowy stockroom somewhere in Los Angeles. Since I doubt they cut Grief of War in on the deal, the band probably arrived at retro thrash by themselves.

Resist
Rat Race

Grief of War describe themselves as "Samurai Crunch," which would be the most awesome cereal ever. They're not as original as that description implies, but it's true they only serve one master: thrash. Yet they've moved beyond "let's play thrash!" - which is where most US retro thrash is at - and are now about writing actual songs. Key to their songwriting are fiery, tasty leads, which soar over reliably thrashy riffs. Given the band's technical prowess, their performances are a little loose, but that only adds to the old-school flavor. Other than a few blastbeats, this record could have come out 20 years ago.

I recently faulted Warbringer for the same thing, but somehow Grief of War don't feel so opportunistic. Instead of the retro thrash uniform (which is so conformist it could be a Halloween costume), they have their own look going on. On A Mounting Crisis, they sometimes have their own sound, too. They're currently recording their second album, so I'm curious how the band will progress.

A Mounting Crisis is available physically at Prosthetic, Relapse, and The End, and digitally at Amazon.

Marty Friedman vs. Paul Gilbert - Big-Deth

The Japanese are responsible for some of the most fucked-up (and addictive) TV I have ever seen. There's their uber-sadistic game shows (warning: NSFW), my favorite of which involves forcing contestants to apply makeup while riding a rollercoaster. There's the most messed-up English lesson ever. There's the amazing Cats Carrying Fish, 11 full minutes of...cats carrying fish.

But the most mind-melting TV I've seen recently is this appearance by Marty Friedman and Paul Gilbert on Rock Fujiyama. American TV doesn't hold a candle to this. Friedman and Gilbert speaking fluent Japanese? The Japanese hosts rocking American accents? A weird duet where Friedman and Gilbert struggle through "Tornado of Souls" (which has one of my all-time favorite guitar solos)? It all pales in comparison to an incredible session of "play a riff by that band," where Gilbert demonstrates what a walking riff dictionary he is.

There's tons more of Friedman/Gilbert goodness on YouTube. I have watched this clip at least six times now...you can't beat the Big-Deth.

Phazm, Marty Friedman, Hot Cross reviews

Phazm

New review is up at Stylus of French black 'n' death 'n' roll outfit Phazm. Up at Metal Injection are reviews of ex-Megadeth shredder Marty Friedman and Equal Vision artists Hot Cross.

Phazm - Black 'n' Roll
Hot Cross - Silence Is Failure