My last review was an album entirely filled with songs
about the St. Lawrence Seaway. This next album is about as far as you could get
from that, but equally enjoyable.
Disc 1220 is… Yasou Emaki
Artist: Wagakki
Band
Year of Release: 2015
What’s up with the Cover? The Wagakki Band strike heroic
poses. This cover demonstrates that poses always look more heroic when you
brandish a sword.
Despite
all the swords, there is no reason for alarm – they’re musicians not
swordfighters. And don’t worry about the fact that there are eight of them; they
aren’t a ska band either.
How I Came To Know It: I was reading an article online
and someone was pointing out how weird this band was. I’d never heard them so I
watched the embedded video to decide for myself. The video was over the top,
filled with fantasy fight scenes which were pretty cool but as for the music I
didn’t find it weird at all - I just liked it.
I then
set out to find a Wagakki Band album but that is not easy on this side of the
Pacific Ocean. In 2017 Sheila and I went to San Francisco and I brought my ‘hard
to find’ music list to the legendary Amoeba Records. Sheila quickly became
bored watching me dig through the stacks so she amused herself by helping me
look for rare records. I gave her this one as an assignment not expecting much
but low and behold – she found it.
How It Stacks Up: I only have one Wagakki Band album. I am on
the lookout for their 2014 effort “Vocalo Zanmai” but it might be a while. Even
Amoeba didn’t have that one. For now, there is no stacking to be had.
Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4
Imagine Jethro Tull, Iron Maiden and Madonna had a
baby and you might have an approximation of Japanese folk-metal group Wagakki
Band. The group blends pop, traditional Japanese folk and heavy metal into a
high-energy soup of syncopation and soaring melodies.
The band’s front woman is Suzuhana Yuko. Suzuhana’s
vocals are pure pop, pure and light with a little sugar around the edges, like
she’s smiling at you while she’s singing. Her vocals carry most of those uplifting
melodies I noted earlier, and she delivers them in long, furious bursts that
must take incredible breath control. She doesn’t blow you away with power, but
there is a technical mastery there, and whatever she’s singing (all the songs
are in Japanese) she sings it with conviction.
Wagakki Band is famous for blending Western rock and
roll with traditional Japanese forms, and their commitment starts with their
instruments. Alongside the standard guitar-drums-bass approach they add
Japanese folk instruments including the koto (a thirteen string sideways harp),
the tsugaru shamisen (a kind of thin-necked banjo/guitar), and the shakuhachi
(an end-blown bamboo flute). The blend of east and west works fabulously here,
creating an undercurrent of heavy metal, with the bright and more whimsical
traditional instruments.
I am particularly fond of Kaminaga Daisuke’s work on
the shakuhachi. When Suzahana’s vocals aren’t casting their spell, you can be
sure Kaminaga’s flute will be. His shakuhachi alternates from a blur of fantasy-evoking
notes to a ghostly whistle as the song requires. There is plenty of great
guitar licks on “Yasou Emaki” but I like it best when the shakuhachi is rocking
out.
The entire album has a driving energy that makes it
rush forward. Despite clocking in at a rather bloated 61 minutes the experience
was over before I knew it.
Lyrically, I had no idea what was going on. The
tracks are all listed in Japanese and while the CD booklet prints all the
lyrics, those are in Japanese as well. There are some English words in the
titles (Track 3 is called “Perfect Blue” and Track 12 has the words “Attack on
Titan” embedded in the middle of a bunch of Japanese characters, but that was
far too little information to form a guess about what the songs were about.
It was a bummer, because I suspect these guys sing
about cool stuff, but I have no idea. It reminded me a little of when I listen
to Celtic folk music in Gaelic, catching the energy but not knowing what is
happening, except in this case everything is sped up and electrified.
Wagakki Band is not for everyone. You need to like both
folk and metal, and you have to have an open mind to hearing some arrangements
and melodic structures that aren’t exactly what your ear is accustomed to.
However, if you can open your mind to the experience, these guys will quickly
draw you in with their skillful playing and enthusiastic delivery.
Best
tracks: I know
what I like, I but I don’t know what they’re called so I’ll just list them by
track: Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, Track 6, Track 11, Track 12
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