Khyl

I had never heard of this band before until I read a very deep-insight article from some music magazine some time ago. I haven't even heard so much japanese music, though I like very much Sigh, Sabbat Gallhammer, Boris and stuff like that. You could easily just label this one as a progressive metal but it is much more than that. The first words that pop unto my silly gulliver are something like, death,avant-garde,thrashgrind-fusion-hc thingie with female vocals and a quite whacky outlook.

The band was formed in 1996 as an Anekdoten- cover band. First demo was finished in 1998 and they managed to get a recording deal the following year. They released their self-titled debut in 2000, and the second one, Naishikyo-Sekai
came out in 2005 by Seasons Of Mist, after five painful years of writing, recording and and producing. The third album is already under work.

Kyoukotsu-no-Yume is a short intro bit, which has some Frank Zappa/Pekka Pohjola(!) kind of vibe with fusionlike keyboard-runnings and jazz-drumming. Very, very interesting starter.

Koumon-Kokuin-Shintai opens with a very direct blastbeat-hammering and fuzzy basslines and after some noise-insanity the vocals turn into clean surprisingly painless. The combination of traditional metal riffage and 70'esque keyboard-patterns is something very orgasmic when done the right way. Damn.

The lyrics are in japanese so there's no hope understanding them. I guess they are about something ancient but I'd have to get much deeper into chinese literature, in an ancient, mostly forgotten dialect of course. Settle.

Anoji, the vocalist got me right away. She has some of the sickest death-growls I've heard in a while and I love her clean bits also. Futari Asobi gets also right into business with some very cleverly constructed lead-guitar parts. After about three minutes the guitars stop and we have a quite lenghty piano-interlude, which goes again into a massive wall of sound with all kinds of background-noises, screaming, wailing, moaning, explosions that lead the song into it drum-driven's climax. Man this album got me allready by the balls after three songs. That is always a good sign.

Tsuki To Hangyoujin then again has an ambient-like opening with the traditional chimes and classical piano that sounds really.. epic. This song as a whole is one of the mellowest ones on the record, and maybe closest to what could be called 'basic progressive metal'. The vocals just melt me every time. Jeeszh.

Rou No Aruji is fucking crazy, the bands just losts it completely and bash in every fucking note and tune they can get out of them, for a while I mean. After a bit of that mentioned above, Fumio, the guitarist duh, gives a very old-skool metal soloing, then it goes into mentally demented elevator-jazz. Love it. The sung bits are like chanting. Closes itself with a.. some screaming and.. a few minutes of ambient-bongo-fuzz-noise. Of course. Nice.


Kyoumon Kokun Shintoi was originally released on an earlier demo and is kinda similar with the finished album-version. So it doesn't actually contribute
much anything to the album but it is a quite interesting curiosity.

What could I say about this album? It doesn't resemble almost anything I've heard before. Well the metal-parts have some Sigh-feeling in them so that's pretty good. I better cut the bullshit. If you have an open mind and you prefer interesting musical pieces, take this one into consideration.

Vittu tämä on hyvä.


10/10