I’m going to say three words I never thought I would use grouped
\ntogether: Japanese death metal.<\/p>\n
While metal has been very popular in the land of the rising sun,
\nvery few groups have been able to invade these shores and make any
\ntype of impression. While I’m willing to concede I’m forgetting
\nquite a few, the one that comes to mind is Loudness, who did have
\nsome success in the States and were not considered a novelty act.
\nAnd by no means am I suggesting that Japanese bands should stay
\naway from metal; Lord knows I get enough hate mail as it is.<\/p>\n
But death metal is one realm that it didn’t seem like Japanese
\nbands would ever enter – until now, that is, with the self-titled
\nrelease from Amduscias. And while the band has learned the lessons
\nof the music well from their predecessors in Europe and Asia (where
\nthis genre seems to be more alive), they need to add one more thing
\nto the mix before they’re ready to strike: some level of
\noriginality.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/bassist Ryichi, guitarist Tomoya and drummer
\nMike I (at least they don’t have some caveman-meets-Dante’s Inferno
\nnames) – follows the traditional format of death metal note for
\nnote. Into the pot they throw: blazing rhythm guitar, speed-freak
\ndrumming, almost unrecognizable bass work, vocals that alternate
\nbetween grunts and coherency… been there, done that.<\/p>\n
The six songs on
\nAmduscias<\/i> (which clocks in at around 28 minutes) all follow
\nthis format (though I will admit I liked the thunderstorm effects
\non “The Dragon Domination” – perfect way to end this song!), and
\nall the musicians prove they’re technically able to create this
\nmusic. But what I don’t hear is a lot of creativity – the first
\nsign that this is a young, up and coming band. Tracks like “Hell On
\nEarth,” “Dominion Of Darkness” and “Blood From Your Heart” all are
\nfaithful examples of the genre, but I don’t hear any personal
\nsignatures in the music – you know, a guitar lick here, creative
\nsongwriting there. This, however, may come in time.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem that Amduscias is going to face is
\nconvincing people that they’re serious about being a death metal
\nband. I’ll admit that when I first read the bio of this band, my
\nfirst thought was: “Yeah,
\n
\nright<\/i>
\n<\/b> .” I was not prepared to take this band seriously (though I
\ndid listen to the disc with an open mind), and they might face the
\nsame uphill battle from a fickle audience.<\/p>\n
My biggest complaint with this album (besides its brevity) is
\nthat it’s pretty much standard fare; there’s not a lot here to
\nseparate this album from the rest of the sea of releases that have
\nbeen coming to me in the mail. So far,
\nAmduscias<\/i> has been good for a quick listen (as well as for
\npissing off the neighbors), but I don’t forsee this one becoming a
\nstaple of my musical diet.<\/p>\n
Amduscias needs to find their own unique niche in an
\nalready-crowded genre to stand out. Until then,
\nAmduscias<\/i> is an album that shows a young band trying to find
\ntheir foothold, and not doing anything spectacular to draw
\nattention to themselves.<\/p>\n
1999 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
\nBlackend \/ Metal Blade Records, and is used for informational
\npurposes only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6129],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36267","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-amduscias","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36267"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36267"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}