Dir en grey
Uroboros
STRANGE AND STIRRING SOUNDS FROM THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN.

IN RECENT years, there has been a phletore of stunning sounds breaking out of Japan, including the experimental doom and drone of Boris, the achingly beautiful post-hardcore of Envy, the downright evil racket of Gallhammer, and the truly demented stylings of Melt Banana, yet all of these bands generally only reached an underground audience. Right now, the smart money is on Dir en grey as the first real 'breakout' band in contemporary Japanese heavy music, and having already started building an army of followers in the West, Uroboros, their seventh album, is poised to provide that crossover.
Trying to eloquently categorise their sound is pretty much impossible, particularly since they have evolved over the course of their 11-year career, and Uroboros is a metal record with overt flavours of nu-metal, prog, thrash, classic rock, industrial and the truly indefinable. Their progression into heavier and harder territory started on 2007's The Marrow Of A Bone is continued here, and when they bring out the big riffs, as they do on Reiketsu Nariseba - the Middle Eastern nuances of which recall System Of A Down - and Bugaboo, they come at you with bludgeoning force. However, it is often in their more restrained moments that they are most effective, most notably on Toguro, with its textured sitar ambience, and the epic Ware, Yami Tote..., which on the way to its dramatic climax sounds like something culled from the soundtrack of Kill Bill.
The most obvious obstacle in the way of mainstream acceptance in the West is their vocals. Like Rammstein, a lot will depend on whether you can accept the non-English lyrics, and perhaps more pertinently, the heavy accented and stylised delivery, which in this case creates a somewhat alien feel as vocalist Kyo's voice has a propensity to break free and float above the music that rages beneath it in a manner that is part Glenn Danzig, part tripped-out Manga soundtrack.
To be frank, this is perhaps not the best record for newbies to start out with, 2005's Withering To Death in some ways more accessible, but Uroboros is a good if not great addition to their catalogue and certainly provides a different kind of listening experience.