Review Summary: Insane anime inspired Japanese symphonic melodic death metal. Awesome? Yes!
Japan has a very interesting metal scene indeed. Imperial Circus Dead Decadence second release Kurooshiku Saita Seisan Na Mukuro Wa Kanaderu, Itooshiku Saita (which very roughly translates into: Mukuro is appalling that bloomed Kuruoshiku play, a girl who can sing the lyrics of love regrettable split sacrament-) is just a big concoction of everything. What is going on here? This album is just confusing right of the bat. It feels so foreign yet so very homely, but still an epic journey rests within this album just waiting for someone to notice it. (I will now abbreviate the album title to Kurooshiku since that is obviously much easier.) Kurooshiku is a rather unknown release, but for all the wrong reasons. It hasn’t been for sale in any other countries other than Japan which is a disappointment. The album and band name isn’t really that appealing either and can really create perplexity, but once discovered it’s not easily forgotten.
As far as originality goes Imperial Circus Dead Decadence has a lot of this, but only utilizes some of it during Kurooshiku and focuses for the most time on a more straight forward power/melodic death metal album. This goes for most of the riffs and pretty much all of the drumming. The thing that makes this album the most special is probably the vocals. I have no idea of what this bands line up looks like, but I’m pretty certain that this band only have one singer, which is hard to imagine after listening to Kurooshiku though. If the band has two vocalist or one I cannot tell, but I will still do my best to explain them. The harsh vocals range from very low growls to mid grunt/screams to extremely high pitched shrieks. This range is notable in many of the songs and this harsh vocalist is a really good one. As for the clean singing it’s mostly done by a male vocalist with a smooth, but with a quite insane tone to it. He is very energetic in his singing and it works perfectly with the rest of the music. Some of the clean singing is made by a female vocalist with a very high voice. This certain voice just feels really Asian and it’s fantastic for the atmosphere. All the lyrics are also of course in Japanese.
The Symphonic and Black metal influences is obvious in many songs. Keyboards are used thoroughly in every song and often has the sound a organ or string instruments which gives Kurooshiku a filly neoclassical atmosphere as well. Really fast blast beats which appears throughout the album mixed with the keyboard is what gives Kurooshiku it’s black metal feel. A lot of samples can be also be found here and the mostly consists of strange and chilling background noises combined with some Japanese little girl talking. I have not idea of what is said in these samples since finding information about this album is really hard. Finnish power/ melodic death metal bands like Children of Bodom or Norther have noticeably influenced this band.
What makes this album the most fun is actually the occasional highlights. The second song “Gekiai no Yobigoe ga Dekiai no Kyougoe wo" is a highlight on it’s own and is one of the best songs on the entire album. It is a combination of pretty much all genres I have stated in this review and it’s just insane how fantastic yet crazy it is. The vocals are amazing and it’s a very enjoyable track. No songs are boring which is a big plus and even though some of the songs might sound similar, another really original track comes along and gives the album a push in the right direction again. The sixth track is somewhat similar to something Dir En Grey would release and it is just a very weird song which once again shows us what a diverse band Imperial Circus Dead Decadence is. I might understand that some peaople really won’t like it becuase it kinda goes overboard with the cheesy anime stuff, but other than that it’s amazing.
