No visual kei please. That being said, the only band that I currently know/listen to is Ling Tosite Sigure. I find their style very appealing. Anyways if you guys have some suggestions just post em here, so I can give them a listen.
Looking to get into japanese rock/metal
Not exactly "Japanese" in style, I guess, but Japanese nonetheless.
Boris. Although Boris, has played practically every genre on the planet, including some j-pop influenced electronica and noise.
Acid Mothers Temple
Zeni Geva. Their stuff is generally much shorter and dynamic than this one - KK Null is a straight up noise rock artist, his live album with Steve Albini is awesome.
Mono
Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - Rock
Shinsei Kamattechan - Noise Pop, Rock, crazy pitchshifted vocals
Number Girl - Rock, Post-Hardcore
Gesu no Kiwami Otome - Rock (with piano and funky bass)
tricot - Math Rock
Mutyumu - Classical, Metal, Post-Rock
Midori - Jazz, Punk Rock
the cabs - Math Rock, Screamo
Kinoko Teikoku - Rock, Shoegaze (My personal favorite)
I don't know why you'd feel the need to listen to bands of a certain style exclusively from one nation but OK!
Here is the best Japanese metal band. They are called Boris and are named after a Melvins song. It's hard to pick one track because their style changes a lot from the drone-as-fuck records like Flood to more straight forward psychedelic stoner/doom. So I've just picked a track from the first album I've heard by them as it's as good a intro to their more stoner doom stuff as anything. So he's Pink, from the 2005 album Pink...Wait, no. I took so long writing this bloody post that someone else posted exactly the same song! Oops. OK, instead of Pink have some Korosu from the first Heavy Rocks
If you dig that then I'd recommend the whole album Pink, and also look into 2002's Heavy Rocks. The 2011 album Heavy Rocks is neat too, and I'd point you in the direction of 2003's Akuma No Uta as well, my personal favourite. And if you are into any drone I'd suggest Flood & Feedbacker as great records to pickup. There's other good stuff like collaborations with other Japanese musicians such as the incredible Merzbow (Megatone is pretty dope, so is Sun Baked Snow Cave) & their's also Rainbow which they did with Michio Kurihara, the guitarist from Ghost. And most famously they did a record with Sunn O))) called Altar which I think every musical hipster owns and loves.
Sigh are a Japanese black metal group who have released some of the most interesting black metal records in the genre's relative short existence. They are absolutely a black metal band at their core, but really experimental with it, some great use of Moogs in some of their tracks. Hard to just recommend one track again as they've had a pretty varied career. So fuck it, just picked one.
What else is there? In a doom metal vein Church of Misery are one of the modern greats of the sub-genre. They just riffs man. Big fat riffs you bang your head to.
Corrupted are absolute legends of the doom metal scene. Gallhammer have some great tracks that are like crust punk through a black metal filter (others through a Flipper filter, which is great, no one remembers Flipper but they should). Vivian Slaughter from Gallhammer was in a group with her Norwegian husband (Maniac from Mayhem) called Sehnsucht who only did one album, Wuste but it's really unsettling noise. I feel like there's other great bands I'm totally forgetting here. Maybe I'll come back to this after a think.
Away from metal, there's the tremendous post-rock group Mono, the post-hardcore legends Envy, the majestic and crazy Acid Mothers Temple and various off-shoots/collaborations, Afrirampo, a now split-up duo whose music covered the spectrum from punk to pop to psychedelic rock to noise rock. And there's the aforementioned Merzbow, who has released a hundred thousand records in the past 30 something years (only a slight exaggeration) of difficult noise music, but very important in the experimental & noise scenes. Worth checking out but definitely not for everybody. Boredoms are an incredible noise-rock band who've been around for decades as well. Want to say that Vision Creation Newsun is probably a good starting point, but Soul Discharge is worth jumping in at too.
OH! That's who I almost forgot, quite possibly my other favourite Japanese band, Melt-Banana! They are an incredible noise-rock band who are influenced by punk rock and grindcore but who also manage to, against all odds, incorporate some sort of pop sensibility to their music. Singer Yasuko has a wonderful charisma to her performances, but her high-pitched shouting isn't really for everyone, I'd accept that. And the guitarist Ichirou uses a heck of a lot of feedback and effects in general to craft his beautiful sound. Their 2003 record Cell-Scape is an absolute must listen to, their last album Fetch is incredible too. But I'm going to say their poppiest album was 2007's Bambi's Dilemma and that's incredible. Here is a song from that record. It's hard to pick just one. It's incredible. Incidentally, if you ever get an opportunity to see Melt-Banana live, grab it with both hands. They are phenomenal.
The lack of the pillows makes me sad.
Any reason for the lack of interest in Visual Kei? It's almost entirely contained in the appearance and stage antics (ie the 'visual' part) and not the musical styling.
Either way I love the modern Dir en Grey stuff for heavyrock/metal, they used to be very much visual kei but moved on from it a long while back, Ouroboros is my favorite recent album, and this track really makes it:
No love for Guitar Wolf?
Also, @viciousreiven I love me some DEG. I've had Uroko stuck in my head all week.
@raspharus I'll second Maximum The Hormone. Love this track but can't find the full edit that doesn't have the joke song at the start unfortunately. The real music starts at about 1:45.
Miyavi is pretty awesome too. Some really impressive guitar work, and catchy as heck:
Not sure if this counts but does anyone listen to S.S.H. AKA Saitama Saisyu Heiki ? <his page on the gb wiki. He is a doujin musican I guess. He did loads of remixes of video game music and the soundtrack to eXceed 3rd JADE PENETRATE Which is damn good and can be found here: https://tennen-sozai.bandcamp.com/album/exceed-3rd-jade-penetrate-black-package-original-soundtrack
He has done some other soundtracks more recently but his VGM remixes are damn good.
Here is some of his best stuff, all instrumental: More here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20FC05B8F9D76D76
Say if you liked it or if it doesn't count or if you know anything similar. Check out his page on giant bomb also.
@alkusanagi: I assumed everyone in this thread already knows about the pillows. Pretty much my gateway band into Japanese music.
@rudeboy217 It may sound super lame, but mine was An Cafe. But I've moved on to way better VK bands now. But I like other Japanese bands apart from the VK scene.
A nice and heavy death metal band.
A lighter metal band, that includes female vocals.
@forkboy: I like the way some of Melt Banana's songs sound but her vocal style is... strange. And this is coming from someone who listens to a lot of the more extreme forms of metal, I spend most of my music listening time with harsh vocals. I should listen to them more and get used to it. I remember reading somewhere that all of her lyrics are in English?
I don't have many examples, I'm listening to some of the stuff in this thread though!
@believer258: Yeah, her vocals are definitely a high barrier to entry, but they are also something you can adapt to really quickly. But as for weird vocal performances...Dog Song features her barking a lot.
Good to see some Boris, Boredoms, Mono and Zeni Geva love. I'll throw a couple of albums out there (my bad if someone already mentioned these albums/bands my phone isnt fully loading the videos/links for some reason):
Ruins - Hyderomastgrogingem - noise/math rock style that should appeal to fans of early Lightning Bolt and early Hella.
Asobi Seksu - Citrus - This probably doesn't count since I believe this band is from NY but the vocalist sings in Japanese on some of the songs... really good shoegaze/dream pop album.
Envy - All the Footprints You've Ever Left and the Fear Expecting Ahead - Envy's sound was a good mix of hardcore/screamo and post-rock around this album. In my opinion this is their best work, before they got too enamored with drawn-out compositions... "Left Hand" practically renders all other screamo obsolete.
Forgot about Chthonic
They're Taiwanese...
E: Not that they're not rad. I really enjoyed their album Seediq Bale 8 years ago, or so. One of the first 'metal band' t shirts I ever got was Chthonic :D
You know I actually knew that lol but totally forgot (inb4 racist) love the mix of traditional instruments mixed in their music.
@chatmonchies: Thanks for reminding me that High and might color broke up... now I am sad.
The Pillows are great I recommend looking up there Lostman Go to Budokan concert if its still on youtube.
B'z are pretty good though there style has drastically changed over there carrier
And if your looking for a band trying REAL hard to be the Beatles (in style) the bawdies are a pretty good approximation
Ok so I gave a careful listen to all the artists that you guys posted here. What I like a lot are Large House Satisfaction(their whole style and the vocals are too good), and Kinoko Teikoku(being a fan of shoegaze and atmospheric rock/metal/post rock).
Also Onmyo-za and the pillows were pretty decent, I'm gonna make sure to give em a listen. Thanks for you suggestions so far.
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