SHINGETSU

I was quite surprised to find recently how creative and varied was the japanese prog scene in the late 70´s and early 80´s. Unfortunalty not too many bands had a long career and broke up after one or two LPs. Shingetsu is one of them: with a strong Genesis influence (specially around the Wind & Wuthering period) the group made a great mix of european and japanese roots to deliever a truly international sound.

The CD is far from perfect, but as a debut recording, it is also very promising and outstanding. I specially like the first track, Oni, a great prog epic and the last, the beautiful Return Of The Night again very Genesis-like). The remaining songs were also nice but not at the same level as those two. The lyrics are all in japanese, but the delivering is so convincing it hardly matters if you don´t know what the singer is talking about. In other words, a very poignant music that every prog lover should give it a listen.

It is only a shame this band did not have a long career. Certainly they would have outgrow their Genesis mold and delivered some real strong and original stuff. 3,5 stars.