So somehow I completely missed the news about this because the past month or two of my life has been super hectic and busy, but it looks like Ningen Isu will be releasing their 18th full length next month on the 25th, which is CRAZY! Such a productive, hard working group of guys. This one is supposed to have 13 tracks as well, which is pretty nuts too. Given that this is their fourth album with thirteen tracks, it's looking like that's just their new standard for album length. Personally, I'm hoping for more big hooky stuff than Mandoro had to offer, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it all regardless. The band haven't had a bad album yet!

Album cover:


Gaijin scum assemble, get hype and discuss!

Since my HMV Japan CD backlog is mostly cleared now, I was considering investigating this band and a few others with sprawling discographies (Anthem and Inugami Circus Dan are also on my hitlist). What's a good starting point with this band? I was thinking of starting with the latest material and working my way down - splitting it up into three 6 CD orders.

I love like their cover art is always so different from the previous album. I do think their albums have too many songs even though they're all good, less is more sometimes.

I'm totally jealous if you buy their discography, Perdition! Being broke sucks, I want 'em! Concerning a starting point, all their albums are 90%+ in my book, you can't go wrong with any of them. It's been a fight between TheStormIRide and me concerning their reviews, he's winning 4 to 3! You could join the team

One of my favs and a good example of their early sound: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/%E ... %91/164344
Perhaps their proggiest: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/%E ... %95/164359
Their catchiest and shortest album: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/%E ... bs_reviews

I'm a casual listener of these guys and I'll admit they're one hell of a hard/prog/doom rock band. I'm only familiar with about 3 albums of theirs though. But if this is their 18th full length, they sure can consistently shit out quality albums. That artwork looks awesome.

Yep.
Cover art is fantastic and very peculiar to the band's style. Can't wait to hear what they follow up those last three absolute corkers with.

Bloody love this band, can't wait to get round to having everything in hard copy eventually. Got time today, been meaning to either do more reviews for them or finally find a good paint to add their logo onto my leather jacket (pending a Japanese friend of mine checking over my lettering).

Nice! I'm planning to pain the logo on my vest as well!

Completely stoked for this. I'm going to be doing a few more reviews from their discography, eventually. Everything they've touched is pure gold. I recently started watched a bunch of live videos on Youtube and I am seriously considering planning a vacation to Japan that coincides with Ningen-Isu playing a show...

Thanks again Crick and Metantoine for pointing them out to me!

P.S. - Anyone known if Tokuma does promos for review? It'd be nice to get a jump on it!

I played a couple random songs on youtube and was pretty impressed (I especially liked the bass guitar... the shock!). I think I'll leave the rest as a surprise and gradually pick away at their discography. There's a couple other mid-late June pre-orders I need to do, so I'll squeeze in their latest album plus the 1-2 before it. The new one has a limited edition with a bonus DVD (a live concert, apparently) - I'm debating if I want to break down and get that one. Watching Japanese lives is of particular interest because there's no chance for me ever seeing these bands live.

I definitely need to suck it up and just order a few of these, including the special edition. My wife's not going to be happy!

There, I pulled the hammer and ordered it (the limited edition), Mandoro, Shigan Raisan and some other CDs (new Aldious, Magistina Saga, and Around the Nation). Pricey, but worth every cent. I actually have a 100% success rate with pre-ordering albums from Japanese bands, believe it or not. The next 1.5 months of waiting is going to be torture.

Some of their album covers I really like (I'm finding a lot of album covers over there that I like a lot).

Been thinking about checking this band out for years, but I never got that far. Could someone take some time to describe their different sounds through the years? Is their older material more influenced by Rush, and their newer more influenced by Black Sabbath? Or how is it?

I've only heard some songs here and some songs there, and I've liked a lot of it.

The quick answer is to check out the reviews on their page. Metantoine and I have both hit several different stages of their sound on those reviews.

New PV:

I'm looking at paying $75 for two Ningen Isu CDs with the multi buy deal plus shipping from HMV Japan to the US. That's a bit lofty for me! If you don't mind me asking, Perdition, does that sound like what you'd spend for two CDs from Japan? It's looking like I have no cheaper alternative so I might pull the trigger.

Which version of the new album are you getting? The limited edition is considerably more expensive than the regular one. Mind you, if you downgrade to the regular version, you'll probably lose the multibuy discount for the other CD.

Full-length CDs usually cost me around $20-30 US each (excluding shipping). Newer ones are of course more expensive. Taking advantage of coupon promotions helps a lot too (there's a "20% if you spend 8000 yen" rebate coupon promotion going on now). Shipping is pretty brutal, but at least its fast, insured, and has tracking. It becomes a bit more cost effective with larger orders.

I don't recommend Amazon.jp - their shipping rates are even worse (and I heard their packaging is sometimes iffy). CD Japan is good, but their CDs are a bit more expensive than HMV Japan. However, their shipping is a bit cheaper and they offer alternate shipping options (mind you, getting 2 CDs via EMS costs the same for me as airmail).

I was looking at the limited edition version with the DVD. It's on sale at the moment, too, so with the multibuy that's probably my best bet. And yeah, I'd imagine you'd get the most bang for your buck placing infrequent, large orders. I might just hold off for now and place a bigger order in the future when I'm more comfortable doing so.

CD Japan is new to me, thanks for bringing them up. I only see a couple Ningen Isu CDs on there at the moment but I'll bookmark them for the future. The shipping prices are very reasonable!

Thanks for the help!

That MV and song are both fucking amazing. Brilliant, dark, groovy stuff. I can't wait to grab this record. Nice to see they're getting lots of love round these parts these days too.

I actually just got to hear the new song today, and holy shit is it living up to my expectations. That entire mid section is so fucking badass. Really excited for the album now! Also really glad that people are getting to see the level of energy Ningen Isu put into their live performances. Shinji might LOOK like a tiny old man, but he still rocks hard.

Crick just forced me to listen to this, and holy shit - the riffs, man. Seriously, this is some great stuff.

Oh geez, it looks like I'm going to have to get around to collecting 18 albums one of these days. These great Japanese bands with massive discographies are killing me. I'm just glad that they are all still in print; makes it much easier.

The video Perdition666 posted is my first exposure to Ningen Isu - thanks! That song was a riot. I've been in a big Sabbath mood, so that sounded just right to me. But alas, as Metantoine said, being broke sucks, so I can't get any of their stuff at this time. Good to know for the future though.

When the song posted above picked up speed again at about 4 minutes. I lost it. This shit is fucking amazing!

With long-standing Japanese bands, I like how you can jump in with the latest release and it'll still be good. I've done that multiple times and had good results.

I split up my order (for some reason I was anxious about it being too high of value and getting stung duty, and thus, molested by customs), so that new Aldious and Ningen-Isu's albums "Mandoro" and "Shigan Raisan" are on their way to me and should hopefully reach me on Monday. Its just a matter of time until the pre-order of "Burai Houjou" enters the shipping process. Going from past experience, if the release date is Wednesday (which it normally is in Japan), items enter the shipping process between Friday and Sunday. So I'm checking my order status obsessively. Truth be told, I'm addicted to Japanese pre-orders like a rat hooked on cocaine.

The HMV Japan pre-order bonus is a signed band photo. Disk Union has a hand fan with Ningen-Isu's logo on it. Tower Records has a bonus DVD or something. The last 2 stores you have to use a shopping service to order from, so that's not recommended (due to increased cost).

I think the plan right now is for me to hopefully sell my laptop for a few hundred bucks and use that cash to get Ningen-Isu's discography sometime in the next few months. That'd easily be the largest blind purchase I've ever done, but after hearing that one track. I don't doubt the quality of their releases at all.

While we're on the topic of long-standing Japanese bands, Gargoyle actually just announced a new album to be released on August 27th. So more hype for you guys.

I'm not really one for doom, and I've endured Crick ejaculating everywhere for this band for years now, but that was the first song I checked out on my own without his input, and I'll be damned if that wasn't totally wicked. That middle section was just perfect.

Pre-orders are in shipping process, yeehaw!

It looks like the bonus DVD is a 12 song, 65 min set from January of this year, so that's indeed a nice bonus (I added that edition to their page here).

Perdition, PLEASE tell me how it is!

Oh, I will (both the CD and DVD).

I'll have my real introduction to this band once "Mandoro" and "Shigan Raisan" arrive in the mail tomorrow (or Wednesday, at the dead latest). I have very high expectations. And I only played 2 songs off youtube before deciding to get their stuff. Mind you, I kinda had my mind set to get all their stuff earlier this year - a new album kinda accelerated things.

I think "Taihai Geijutsu Ten" is high on my priority list, because I liked that Dunwich horror song a lot (it was one of the first songs I played by them).

Again, keep me updated on anything you get by them. I am so close to falling over the fence and into Ningen Isu CD territory...and hundreds of dollars in debt.

Also pre-ordered the new album with the DVD. Shipped yesterday or something. I've owned Mugen No Juunin for awhile now but never gave it much of a listen, but Crick posting that new track has me interested in them again so I went ahead and ordered a few albums. Got Ougon No Yoake, Sakura No Mori No Mankai No Shita, and Shigan Raisan in the mail a few days ago and waiting for San Akudouchuu Hizukurige and the new album to arrive now.

I definitely don't love this band like Crick and the guys doing the reviews do, but they're cool. They're best to me when doing the longer proggy epics.

I try to use the English titles when I can, makes the names easier to remember. Always use the English translations when I rip the CDs, but it seems most people use the romaji.

I always use Japanese when I rip stuff (last.fm OCD, I guess), so I probably shouldn't complain when I never remember songtitles. I do sometimes refer to stuff by its translated title though. Onmyo-Za is rather problematic band for me - played all their albums 30-40+ times each and still don't know any songtitles. Ningen-Isu has almost twice as many albums, I'm fucked. Despite all this, I do consider it a major plus when Japanese bands have absolutely everything in Japanese though.

My CD hasn't shipped yet (still "in transit"), but it could be slowed down by two other pre-ordered items. As long as I get it by Monday, I'll be happy.

Just learn to read a lil' Japanese. All the titles become readable! Well, except for some.

Well, it's out now. Time to wait for certain lucky MAers to tell us about it.

I'll give my thoughts once my CD order arrives (should be Tuesday to Wednesday).

I did receive Shigan Raisan and Mandoro yesterday thought and they seemed pretty interesting. Will have to play them more, of course. I do think I'm more partial to the longer, proggier numbers. As a band, they're definitely a lot heavier and energetic than I expected! That one thrash song on Shigan Raisan took me off guard.

So uhh... Any MAers get this in the mail yet? I wanna know what its like! D:

I'm still awaiting mine in the mail. It got delayed a few days for whatever reason (probably the long weekend). It should reach me tomorrow, I hope.

Hopefully it shows up by the end of the week. I got it from CDJapan and went with the cheapest shipping so it'll probably take a bit longer.

It arrived today! I'll give my thoughts on it probably later this evening. I've only heard two other albums, so I'll be kinda useless with juxtaposing it with the rest of their discography.

So long as you don't forget your old buddy Crick, I'm more than happy to wait. Ehehe.

Oh I won't, don't worry.