Crossfaith: AЯK
With its first longer release after quite a few years, Crossfaith first gives fans exactly what they have been waiting for: their own unique brand of brutal and fun metalcore,…
Meat Beat Manifesto & Merzbow: Extict
There are new Merzbow releases all the new albums, reissues, collaborations and so on. Any many of these are actually pretty great, but due to the high volume, obviously only…
Sugar House: Sugar House
Sugar House popped up on my radar last year and became an instant favorite thanks to their songs that belenced between groovy post-punk and sometimes edgier, sometimes more melodic indie…
Prana: Sense Of Unity
This album, released 27 (!) years after the project's previous full length is easily one of the nicest surprises of this year (and yeah, I know it is only March).…
Capsule: Metro Pulse / #2022reviews
Capsule was always about change, right from the start when the duo of producer Yasutaka Nakata and singer Toshiko Koshijima released their first album in 2001. That one was a…
FEMM: Tokyo Ex Machina / #2022reviews
Tokyo Ex Machina's release had the worst timing ever, which almost ruined an otherwise decent EP. Let me explain this: it was released sort of out-of-nowhere just a month after…
FAKY: F / #2022reviews
Most pop acts in Japan aim their music only at the local market, not caring much about worldwide trends and international however there are a few exceptions, including the currently…
Moon In June: evergreen / #2022reviews
Moon In June is a Tokyo based band and before evergreen they only had one other release out, 2020's uminari (海鳴り), another 6 track EP. That one closely following the…
A Year In Reviews: 2021 – The Index
This is an indexed table of contents to the series of reviews that was published throughout December 2021. Japan Vibe was somewhat neglected during 2021 and as an effort to…
Linekraft: Asura / #2021reviews
Masahiko Okubo's Linekraft was never one of those extra-prolific industrial / noise / power electronics acts that drop new material literally every few weeks and in 2021 he only released…