Asriel - 白い闇に沈む永遠の夜 / Sink Into The Darkness Of An Eternal White Night (2006) - Solid Japanese cheese between pop and Visual Kei - 65% (01/11/11)

Asriel is another Japanese band that mixes classic music with a symphonic gothic metal approach, an epic lyrical concept and a lot of visual expression. One can see that the outfits of the musicians, the physical and vocal expression and the cover and booklet artwork are really important to them and I would say that the kind of music Asriel play is quite close to the popular Visual Kei genre as well as to the world of anime and manga. That means that the music is sometimes a little bit too sweet, artificial and pathetic but this band has nevertheless a lot of talent. The style of this very productive and active Japanese project is comparable to the concept of the band Sound Horizon that is also quite open minded from a musical point of view and switches from score elements and classic passages to pop choruses, gothic parts and power metal interludes.

The only difference is that the mysterious mastermind of Asriel, a certain Kurose.Keisuke that seems to perform all instruments, has only one partner in crime which is the female singer and writer Kokomi. She is without a doubt a gracious and beautiful young woman but I think that her vocals are sometimes too stereotypical, too exchangeable and too high pitched. The six tracks on this short first full length record are though overall diversified enough to convince.

The second track “Oz To Majou” has for example some lounge moments and accordion passages that make me think of French folk music. This might not please to most of the metal fans but I find this kind of experiment rather interesting and it has a certain charm and uniqueness in this case.

Some cases like the piano pop track “Tsumetai Tsuki”, the fourth song on this record, that includes some random strings and mediocre guitar riffs are on the other side too cheesy to convince and may only be appreciated by true fans of Japanese culture and music that don’t only listen to metal. It’s not such a bad song but really not my cup of tea and especially the vocals are very childish and Japanese.

In the end, we have a quite diversified and entertaining album here that is for fans of Japanese music and culture only. Visual Kei fans and anime maniacs may adore this kind of music, anybody else should not touch this and maybe head for more metal influenced bands such as Loudness, X Japan or recent Sound Horizon. Personally, I feel mixed about this album. It’s not that bad but not outstanding enough to convince me to check out further releases of this band in the near future.