Since I started this blog, I've got to know so many like-minded people who are either in bands, run labels or just like music. Sometime, even people that fall into all categories. One such person is Christer Lunnan-Reitan. Christer runs a label called Listen To Aylin Records in Oslo, Norway (which I'll be featuring here in a few weeks) and has released music for bands like Suis La Lune, Her Breath on Glass and Calvacades.
As well as running a label, he also sang in a number of bands in Norway, including screamo band Adoor.
I asked Christer if he would contribute some reviews to my blog, after numerous conversations on Facebook about Japanese screamo as well as screamo in general. Christer is a huge fan of screamo/emo bands and as I wanted to know about more bands from the genre, I thought there'd be nothing better than inviting him to share some of his favourite bands and records. So, without wasting any time, here's the first review in a series I'm calling "Great Northern Screamo". It features Japanese hardcore/screamo band Dip Leg.
Listen to the album here:-
Buy it: http://meatcube.storenvy.com/products/659800-dip-leg-the-sympathy-without-love-cd
Meatcube Website - http://meatcube.com
Meatcube Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/MeatCubeLabel
You can visit Christer's label - Listen To Aylin Records, here http://www.listentoaylin.com and on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/listentoaylin.
As well as running a label, he also sang in a number of bands in Norway, including screamo band Adoor.
I asked Christer if he would contribute some reviews to my blog, after numerous conversations on Facebook about Japanese screamo as well as screamo in general. Christer is a huge fan of screamo/emo bands and as I wanted to know about more bands from the genre, I thought there'd be nothing better than inviting him to share some of his favourite bands and records. So, without wasting any time, here's the first review in a series I'm calling "Great Northern Screamo". It features Japanese hardcore/screamo band Dip Leg.
Dip Leg –
The Sympathy Without Love CD (I’ve Come For Your Children, 2002)
I’ve only
recently heard the music of Dip Leg, though this release should be one of the
easier ones for Japanese hardcore-fans to get a hold of. Seeing as it’s the
first international release for the band, you would think they would get more
attention now that people still go nuts over ENVY and Heaven In Her Arms.
Dip Leg
plays a much more ferocious brand of hardcore/scream/chaos than the above
mentioned bands, blending more chaotic and spastic elements into ambient-parts,
but never crossing over into the realm of post-rock or post-metal/ sludge a la
ISIS, Year Of No Light (although I’d recommend Dip Leg for people into those
bands as well). The lyrics are all in Japanese, but the CD has the English
translation of the lyrics in its booklet.
The record
starts off with Ideal and Fact,
setting the tone for the entire records; after a second you can hear what the
band is capable of, with driving bass lines, mesmerising guitars and guttural
vocals over incredible driving drums. Chaotic and intense hardcore, blending
into a hypnotically epic masterpiece. The record continues into Rod Lost Die Understand, a more
typically screamo-sounding (and I use
the word screamo and emo in the best possible sense, no My Chemical
Romance-esque-bands intended) with lots of clean-ish guitars and driving drums,
quirky rhythm changes and extremely passionate and sincere vocals. Crossing over into shouted and sung vocals
at times, the screamed vocals still dominate the sound as a whole. I decided to
only talk about these two tracks as they show the different outskirts of Dip
Leg’s sound, showing their span within their own hardcore-blend.
If I should
compare Dip Leg to another band that’s similar, I have to say it sound like a
combination of early Envy, Kaospilot and We Came Out Like Tigers; The clean
guitars with the fascinating and beautiful melodies, wrapped together with an
extreme intensity and sincerity as well as epic segments that leaves you rather
breathless. But at the same time, Dip Leg have their own unique sound and style
(as I find typical to the whole Japanese emo/ screamo/ chaos-scene, a scene I
love), making it sound refreshing and simply amazing compared to the
run-of-the-mill conveyor belt emo made at the Hype Factory.
It’s hard
to pinpoint the strongest tracks and moments on the record, as all of them
excel in what they try to accomplish; drivingly brutal, but yet emotional songs
without being sappy or cliché. This is
true passion and sincerity, the way hardcore is meant to be played. Even though
Dip Leg stray away from typical clichés, I’m afraid I have to use one to fully
explain this music; this is passion, not fashion.
Pick this
up from the label (formerly called I’ve Come For Your Children, now called
Meatcube), support a great band and a fantastic label.
Listen to the album here:-
Buy it: http://meatcube.storenvy.com/products/659800-dip-leg-the-sympathy-without-love-cd
Meatcube Website - http://meatcube.com
Meatcube Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/MeatCubeLabel
You can visit Christer's label - Listen To Aylin Records, here http://www.listentoaylin.com and on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/listentoaylin.
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