MISHIRANU SEKAI

Mishiranu Sekai was released at the tail end of a particularly prosperous time of the band, pumping out new albums each year, with this monster clocking in at over 72 minutes. That's a whole lot of tunes!

I'm honestly a complete novice regarding knowledge of this act, and with quite a sizable discography under their belt, I have no idea if this album is a good place to start if one were interested in exploring their catalog and were looking for a strong representation of the band's sound to begin their excursion. Thus, I can only keep things simple and review this album as its own beast, and after numerous listens I can state that this recording is quite a beast.

This is not an easy album to categorize once you get past the basics, so I'll just start off by saying it's heavy. The bass is very prominent in the mix, thick and mean while not stealing the show. The guitars certainly possess some serious oomph, although more akin to heavy rock / metal in the vein of early Sabbath, Budgie and the like as opposed to the more crunchy distortion lugged out in the 80's. The drums are also mixed well, and performed with a ton of flair.

The music itself varies from doom metal (such as the opening cut), to catchy heavy rock with strong guitar melodies, to heavy prog tunes with a psychedelic air at times. The guitar solos scattered about boast a bluesy vibe yet sometimes swerve into trippy acid rock territory such as that sublime solo at the center of "Amai Ktoba Warui Nakama". I flat-out love the solos going on here...truly professional yet with a ton of feeling. Some of the riffs may seem a bit simple in nature, but again, it's the feel that matters, and the organic warm tone of the guitars along with that mammoth bass aid in getting these riffs to really cook.

The vocals, all in Japanese, are performed by the bassist and guitarist in a tag-team approach at an almost 1 to 1 ratio. One guy has a gruff edge to his voice, coming across like some dangerous gangster, while the cleaner style preferred by the other dude can be considered equally dangerous since he sometimes sounds like histrionic nutcase. But they're still singing as opposed to yelling or whatnot, and the vocal melodies add to the sheer catchiness of these tunes.

It's hard to pick a favorite track, since there's enough variety going on, and they're pretty much stellar composers regardless of whatever they're aiming for concerning each track, but the longest cut, "Shizenji", really takes the cake with that fantastic main riff and overall dynamics.

With this release under my belt, I have to say that I'll be checking out more of their vast discography in the future, in which I'm leaning towards some of their late 90's work which I've heard leans prominently in 'heavy prog' territory. I enjoyed this release a lot, so maybe it is actually a good place to start; I'll find out eventually.