Blind Materials

When it comes to Japanese female-fronted metal bands, I'm always game to check out whatever albums my grubby hands can latch on to. Being an unabashed fan of the scene, I've heard plenty of acts at this point, and with this reasonably recent tidal wave of new groups cropping up on a consistent basis, there's no shortage of releases to bask in and enjoy. Of course, when the floodgates open, there's also no shortage of clunkers that flow through, bands that I assume would never have seen the light of day if the wave wasn't suddenly in vogue. Blind Materials by Tri Mebius is one of those clunkers, in that it lacks just about everything I enjoy about the Japanese melodic power metal circus.

If you've ever heard this thing by any rare chance, then you would know where the criticism starts. Nao is a ghastly presence. I wouldn't state that her singing is bad; I would state that her singing is "drunken karaoke at the Brown Jug Saloon" bad. I can imagine that if the vocal tracks were extended another twenty seconds after each song finishes, you would hear her wretching and spraying booze out of her mouth like a firehose. It's almost incredible how flat and off-key her delivery is, as if this album is like power metal's answer to the late 70's no-wave scene. Maybe she's a musical artistic protégé of abstract tonality.

She sucks, but to place the band's shortcomings solely on her shoulders would be unfair, since replacing her with some singing dynamo like Akane Liv would only prove how unworthy and inadequate the musicians are surrounding her. I'm not sure which of the two guitarists would be considered worse, but neither can hold a candle to the average shredders flaunting their wank in so many other Japanese bands of this ilk. I wasn't expecting Alhambra-like technical virtuosity, but some quality solos with flair would have been an asset, not these sloppy, flubbing run-of-the-mill runs up and down the neck. The guitar solo during "Proud of You" is abysmal to an extent that it sounds like the guy lost his fucking pick and broke two guitar strings during the recording. The lone bass solo during "Crime End" is a bit of a novelty, but not much of a showcase. Without it, the song would have been shorter, always a good thing for trash like this.

Then there's the compositions themselves, in which almost all of them are lacking and feel unfinished, or in more than a few cases full-blown catastrophes. I'm fine with the band not having a keyboard player coating their sound in crystal frosting, but on a fast paced track like "Crime End", the only speedy tune by the way, they should at least try to embolden things up with melodious guitar lines or some punchy speed metal influenced riffs. Instead, the band went for a stripped down approach with boring chord sequences and deigning their front-woman as the sole melody provider. An absolutely baffling and poor decision. Sadly that's one of the better tracks, as the bulk of these mid-paced tunes dish out unremarkable 80's style riffs that have been played before thousands of times in garages throughout so many nations. One of the longest cuts, "Invisible", deserves a special mention for being Blind Materials' worst track, a plodding grungy disaster with chord sequences so boring that the singing is the only thing that keeps me awake due to its sheer atrocious nature.

The only light in this dismal festering forest is "Notice～Time Tell You～", which succeeds by blending into the metal an unusual mix of post-punk and AOR, which actually renders the vocals more tolerable by allowing the music to be looser with a punk vibe. The tune is an anomaly, and something I've rarely heard before, hence my loopy description of it. The production, while not bad overall, actually favors that sort of style over melodic heavy metal, being fuzzy and raw yet clear.

One interesting song is not even remotely enough to elevate the status of this album from among the bottom-feeders of my immersion in the Japanese scene. It's not like I truly enjoy slandering an album from a scene I dig so much, but it's also not right to act like some promoter or rabid fanboy gushing about all the good shit while pretending that the duds don't exist. They fucking exist, oh man believe me.