Unlucky Morpheus - Cute Japanese Shred Metal

[Canard]

My friend in Texas who loves Mongolian Heavy Metal also has a fondness for the Japanese group, Unlucky Morpheus, a shred metal band whose love of all the well-known European and North American shredders shines out everywhere - they also do a lot of covers of their heroes' works.

The group is dominated by the pyrotechnic female violinist, but the guitar player could probably almost hold his own if he were allowed to step out more often. The rhythm section holds their own, too.

They describe their genre of music as "Technical Melodic Speed Metal".

I have pared the flood of enthusiastic, link-bearing, late-night/wee-hours email from Texas down to two representative links. If you like their stuff, there's lots more and it's easy to find.

Live and less cute




Not Live and more cute

 

[walrus]

"Technical Melodic Speed Metal" made me chuckle! It's hard to keep up with all the genres in metal!

For my tastes, they are skilled, but not very musical.

walrus

 

[Canard]

For my tastes, they are skilled, but not very musical.

walrus

My feelings exactly about most shredders.

And yet ... and yet ... I am such a sucker for vacuous pyrotechnical displays.

 

[Neal]

The sound a little like Kansas to me.

 

[Canard]

The sound a little like Kansas to me.

They sound a little like everyone who has ever shredded before them.

 

[jp]

There's also an interesting Japanese metal/hard rock band that uses traditional instruments like, shamisen, shakuhachi, taiko, et. al., as well as Japanese poetry - Wagakki Band. I think they're famous for anime songs, which is a huge industry fueling the band scene in Japan. My sons' generation is really into video game and anime music, which has some interesting and wacky stuff going on, but a lot of it is too cutesy.

I shared with them my love for the hard rocking and noisy Japanese bands from the 80s/90s that I really dug, like the Ruins, the Boredoms, Melt Banana, and Boris. A lot of this is perfect for annoying or pissing off parents, family, and neighbors. Shonen Knife and Cibo Matto are a little more mainstream and definitely not so edgy, but I love them too.



The guitarist in Melt Banana is so far out there and really creative.