Grim: Totem Song / #2021reviews
Unlike the previous entries in the "A Year In Reviews" series, this one is not an album, but a 7" single, however it is a very special one, the kind…
Newspeak: Turn / #2021reviews
Newspeak's been around since 2017, but I only ran into them about a year and a half ago and I don't really remember the last time a band became such…
Mainliner: Dual Myths / #2021reviews
Mainliner was originally formed in 1995 by Asahito Nanjo (of High Rise) on bass and vocals and Makoto Kawabata (of Acid Mothers Temple) on guitars and a few years, a…
Puffy: The Puffy / #2021reviews
For a long while Puffy, the pop duo of Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura was a mainstay of Japan's mainstream music scene, starting with their million selling debut single, Asia…
Mono: Pilgrimage Of The Soul / #2021reviews
Mono's new, 11th studio album, Pilgrimage Of The Soul was advertised as "the most dynamic MONO album to date". And it got me very curious about whether it is really…
Crystal Lake adds new members, drops a music video and announces EU tour!
Crystal Lake made several important announcement recently, so let's see what's up with Japans metalcore legends: They started off by dropping a music video for a brand new track called…
Capsule: the club pop duo’s first new song and music video in more than six years!
Capsule is back with a new more than six years after their latest release, 2015's excellent Wave Runner album! The duo of Yasutaka Nakata (lyrics, music) and Toshiko Koshijima (vocals)…
Dig deep into the history of the Kansai area hardcore punk scene with F.O.A.D. Records’ new book!
These last few years we've seen a wave of reissues digging up rare gems from the endless annals of Japan's vast and insane hardcore punk scene, but Italy's Records, one…
A Japanese noise & experimental Who’s Who by Ochiai Soup
While the music industry and live music in particular was hit especially hard by the pandemic, there are also some great things coming out of all this and one of…
Dubstep goodies from the second half of 2020, with the reissues and rarities from Goth-Trad and a lot of new releases!
Even though 2020 was very strange, still it was a quiet busy year for Japanese dubstep: there weren't many physical releases, but other than that a lot happened since my…