Jigsaw9

Oh yay, actual drummer and all! 8D Curious how they'll sound. I hope it'll be a liiiiittle better-produced than his usual lo-fi aesthetic. Can't wait to not hear this project either!

Safety Not Guaranteed is awesome, highly recommend it! <3 (even tho it's a lot different than the movies mentioned above) Other cool films not listed yet, either featuring time travel or time/space paradoxes: - Coherence (thriller/mystery film with some bizarre ideas) - Time Lapse (a 'future camera' machine turns the lives of a group of friends upside down) - Donnie Darko (pretty weird; see the director's cut for more coherent/unambiguous viewing) - Triangle (the discovery of a ghost ship leads to some weird shit in this horror flick) - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (cuz we all need some dumb '80s cheese now and then xD)

Meh. July was pretty eventless for me, music-wise. I checked out some cool albums, but those were actually released earlier this year (or they were old as hell), so yeahhh... xD I only have one candidate for this month, sadly. As usual, the rules are pretty simple: you can list what releases you thought were the best, and explain why in a few sentences. You can even pick just 1 album if that's all you've got, and try to keep it to a maximum of 5 items. Feel free to add or remove any albums later if you feel like your taste has changed, etc. Oh, and try to include a sample or two so that others could peep those sweet tunes more easily! Aaand so here's the one July album I actually really enjoyed: Asphalt Graves - The New Primitive / I'm always kinda suspicious when it comes to so-called 'super groups' cuz usually they leave me disappointed, but it seems the less mainstream the band members, the better their efforts are, lol. Featuring musicians of such bands as Gwar, Dying Fetus or The Black Dahlia Murder, the project called Asphalt Graves plays a mean as hell mixture of pulverizing death metal and grindcore. There are enough mildly catchy and absolutely headbang-worthy moments here to keep you company for many spins if you enjoy this type of aggression. Great 'letting out the steam' album. Sorry, no honorable mentions either for me this month. The album above was literally the only thing I noted for myself on my month-to-month list.

I hope Ladybeard will now have a shot at getting into Yoshiki's Lady's X~

Cool! 'bout time for something other than a single too.

Oh great, now they sound like a billion other bands.............. I see they changed their name from katakana too, hmm.

So great~

prettttttty nice sound there~

aww too bad..

Thanks for the live report, it was fun to read!

Literally this.

Your prayers have been answered it seems.

Well that didn't last long. Shame, they were kinda decent from what I've heard.

Had a pretty good weekend gig-wise. Saw NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST at a small shitty venue on Saturday. I wasn't expecting much, but the sound even managed to underwhelm what little standards I had, lol. I was standing at the back around the mixing board, and the whole sound was just a jumbled distorted mass of over-driven drums, some vocals, lots of feedback-y bass and barely any guitars (take the tragic layout of the room plus the mass of ppl converging right before the speakers). I heard that the sound was pretty decent right up front tho, but I wasn't about to dive into a steamy sauna of agitated fangirl flesh. Anyway, the band guys themselves and the audience seemed to enjoy the show a great deal, and we might've gotten an extra encore song compared to some other stops on the tour. It was a pretty ambivalent live all in all: delivered with excitement and professionalism on the part of the band, but semi-butchered by the local technical circumstances. Here's a random live vid taken from the audience (even this vid has better sound than what I experienced live, lmao). However, I took it all in a fairly positive mood, cuz I had a hunch the best was still yet to come. On Sunday I ventured into downtown to see Cattle Decapitation, a band who I wanted to see for a few years now, so I was extra pumped. The night opened with a local 'true underground' band Nadir (true in the sense that they've been doing their thing for like 20 years now and still kinda under the radar for most ppl, lol) who delivered a decent mixture of stompin' hardcore and knucklehead death metal elements. Good for a warm-up. The second local opening act was Kill With Hate, who I've prolly seen for the 4th time already, but their expert brand of furious death metal is always appreciated. Some technical stuff here, some good ol' headbanging there, always presented with razor-sharp precision, but not without soul either. Just a bunch of great guys playing br00tal as hell shit, haha. And then Cattle Decapitation came and totally annihilated everyone. Spirits were already hitting the ceiling of the small concert room right at the start of the intro, then the guys ripped into the opening track of the new album and that was that. I was super glad that they only played songs from their last two albums, cuz imo those are the pinnacles of their songwriting and performance so far. Such amazing musicianship and awesome stage presence, the latter mainly attributed to Travis Ryan who's probably one of my fave extreme metal vocalists of all time. The dude looked possessed and into it as hell, growling and screeching his lines with baffling ease. By the encore the whole band looked a bit drained, but they really appreciated all the love and energy they received. I think the overall atmosphere could be best encapsulated by the closing image of the band walking off stage, some guys lifting up the vocalist to their shoulders and gently making him crowdsurf to the exit. Awesome night. Here's a bit of a video memento of the encore track, plus a photo (find me if you can! haha).

^ I hope Imai brought over some industrial vibes from SCHAFT (and Sakurai some gothiness from THE MORTAL), cuz that would be pretty awesome.

Yeah, same... especially since the two releases are so close together, so we won't have much of a 'digestion time' between the two. xD Anyway, if this helps, the "miraiha" in the title "ATOM miraiha No.9" means "futurism" apparently.

OMG YESSSS I'M SO HYPEDDDDDD And so soon after the single! Awesome.

New project of 浅井健一 (Kenichi Asai), called Kenichi Asai & THE INTERCHANGE KILLS will release their first single "Messenger Boy" (4 tracks, ¥1,300) on 2016/10/05. Their music is described as being influenced by psychobilly, presenting a galloping, violent and groovy style of alternative rock (or something like that, haha). The project was initially conceived in 2016 May, and their first live will be at 川崎市東扇島東公園・特設会場 BAY CAMP 2016 on 2016/09/03, and single release live will be held at 下北沢SHELTER at "SHELTER 25th Anniversary 浅井健一& THE INTERCHANGE KILLS「Messenger Boy」RELEASE PARTY" on 2016/10/09. Kenichi Asai & THE INTERCHANGE KILLS members: vocals & guitar: 浅井健一 (Kenichi Asai) bass: 中尾憲太郎 (Nakao Kentaro) (ex-NUMBER GIRL) drums: 小林瞳 (Kobayashi Hitomi)

You shall be missed, @Trombeif this is really your final decision. Thanks for the awesome work!

yes yesss yeeeesssss

HOLYYYY SHIIIIEEETTTT. Mega-hyped for dat new album!

For me it's a tie between IMAGE and STYLE. They both have some of my favorite tracks.

Btw forgot to mention that both songs were composed by Imai, with lyrics written by Sakurai.

DEZERT takes the cake for me, by far. Their songs are groovy, interesting and they pack a punch, with a sound that can be easily distinguished from their peers. AvelCain always seemed kinda weak and lame to me, even tho they did have some cool tracks here and there...

^ I'm certain they will release either a new album, or another single and then a new album. That seems to be their pattern lately. So let's hope we'll get to hear a new full-length still in 2016~