Naikaku from Japan

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Yes, another futile attempt...

NAIKAKU  have released a fantastic (to me) and great album in Shell, melody is combined with great rhythm, energy is thrusted at you throughout the album without neglecting the beauty of the music. 

Here is the extensive bio written by Ricochet:
From Japan, an already consecrated prog state of art, comes - close in modern, alternative and resonating times - the band NAIKAKU (full name is Naikaku-No-Wa, with the meaning of Internal Nuclear Tide). At first Satoshi Kobayashi (bass) and Kazumi Suzuki (flute) formed the band, in mid-1998, and initiated their music, but eventually the lineup grew towards an eclectic sextet, drummer Norimitsu Endo, guitarist and trumpeter Mitsuo Muraoka, flutist Naoko Higashi and guitarist Kei Fushimi joining. They played, before the debut and the mature emphasis, in clubs such as Yokohama Club 24, plus they managed frequently into the "Instrumental Festival" (or "Instrumental Freak"), by 1-3 gigs, held per month, which promoted them inside the community and outside the rough language. A contest of "All Japan Indies" earned them, in 2000, a third prize. Their first album, "Wheel Of Fortune", caught an unexpected appreciation around many zones, and the tag of "progressive modern rock" immediately followed. NAIKAKU started playing on full shows, for their album release, or played along bands like MANDOG or POCHAKAITE MALKO in 2004 and 2005. In 2006, with Noako leaving the band, and, to some surprise, with Kei Fushimi being left off the major lineup, plus with keyboardist guest Daishi Takagi, NAIKAKU released a second album, "Shell", which is considered a very evolved new music, with much art and intense progressiveness. 

NAIKAKU comes very skilled into a various music earthshake. Many reflections state a heavy modern Jazz-Fusion, with complementary Hard to Eclectic Rock, plus various moments of subtle metal gearing, indie ragging, alternative play, post-tempo, avant-garde hollow shots and vivid associations of the progressive instrumental latency. Furthermore, NAIKAKU seems to please a usual creation, a hectic instrumental twist, several intense, complex and intriguing concerns, plus a mainstream point of pleasure, and a heavy impede. Experimentation is at sight, by leveled-up art-work. Nu-metal and punk rock don't seem that much excluded, but obviously the evolution towards eclecticism makes the two albums have a strong lust, equally for the shockwave plodding and for the interchange complexity. Or even for a moderate 70s feel, given the sound, the melody, the harmony and the essential flavor between the much expanded dimensions and tones. Eastern motives don't miss out much, in several places. Sometimes their furiousness makes a more opaque sense into the dynamic and very much alive talent semblance, still the band is eagerly planning a breakdown of instrumental power and a light entertainment of miscellaneous composition. Uncomplicatedly picked (and picketed) from heavy and dissonant, from spacey to "exhausting", NAIKAKU easily wins an appreciation inside its most achieved music-memory and style-assiduousness.

The notes on influences, adapted influences or relative band/music correlations can be, itself, an impressive paragraph towards what NAIKAKU has oriented, or, rather, towards what critics and listeners have come to appreciate (or to allude, even slightest) in them. I'm mainly quoting the large ideas that are present and circle around NAIKAKU's "behavior". The hard rock can't associate better than KING CRIMSON, going somehow on the classic examples, when perhaps their 90s dark-garde is undeniably closer to veracity. ANEKDOTEN isn't far itself, being however the possible source and anthrax only of some pieces and impressions. DREAM THEATER (or at least the guitar strike, marking Petrucci's bonhomie) is the more unadventurous sign that some of the best dredges in this music correlates with a metal impulse and with a heavy doze of loop clutter. Flutist Kazumi Suzuki, highly talented, helps to such extent the art aroma of the music, as she comes leveled to jazz nuances of MAHAVISHNU or (who else) the tenacious Ian ANDERSON. Since they covered the "Hocus Pocus" jovial improvisation, by FOCUS, it's easy to think a lot towards that prog cornerstone (either, again, by the flute works, or by something else...). In other measures, since the band somehow gets classified around "having an Italian string", LA ZONA comes in mind. AFTER CRYING, by the same likeliness. If ever a psychedelia in them, OZRIC TENTACLES are a prime ideal. The fusion finally bares the lost of all resemblances, but OSANNA was mentioned properly. Essential remains, to all this (both comprised and dispersed, sufficiently adapted and sporadically mentioned) articulacy, to tell that NAIKAKU surely provokes a broadwith of multiple arts and multiple music styles, "trivializing" on a jazzy modern hard rock fusion ornament.

So with two releases already to their credit, NAIKAKU strive to evolve their music into something new by adding artistic visual images to the sounds of progressive rock. This changes the experience dramatically and unrestrictedly, where lyrical "stillness" and technical "movement" are well harmonized. "Shell", of 2006, is specifically considered a masterpiece and an evolved definition for the group and their living animation, going from the "happy" quality of progressive and craft to more different and surprised moments of personal music calamities and closed multi-motioned compositions. Being almost a concept of intricate, powerful, plus busy and loud distorted adventure. Or "a manic that won't depress", as I've read.

For the modern breath take of several nuances, NAIKAKU are only illusory heavily and alternatively simple-headed, but are instead able to fully convince of an experiment within many nuances of prog and a fashionable treat of (style) fusion inside a heavy, heart cord, commencing fast-forward eccentricity. Combining the wild jam nature with more darkened technical stubbornness, or the intelligent melody innovation with the captivating music sojourn. In all means, an impressive flavor for recent prog, a massive heading towards the referential. 

(some parts of the bio are taken from several sources and reviews)

:::Victor "Philip" Parau (Ricochet):::

Here are two reviews:

Guests Reviews

NAIKAKU — Shell
Review by Starless (Roger T) 
 What a discovery this band from the land of the rising sun are! Despite being slightly put off at the prospect of a flute as lead instrument, and that the other prime mover in the band is the bass player, the sound they come up with is simply awesome. Ably augmented by a guest guitarist who gets to flex his fret fingers on numerous occasions, they cook up a jazz-prog-metal stew which puts one in mind of Red era King Crimson. They may well be influenced by their late 70s compatriots Kennedy, as they share a similar fondness for jazz tinged epics laced with passages played at breakneck speed.
The opening track appears to be a re-recorded version of a track from their first album, and benefits from much improved production. The third track has what I must assume is the longest track title ever (see the band website for the full title), which is ironic as like all the other tracks on the album it is an instrumental.
If you like your jazz-prog fast with many layers and time signature changes, then this is for you. 
Posted Friday, June 29, 2007, 10:25 EST | Permanent link

NAIKAKU — Shell
Review by Hirgwath 
 Naikaku knows what good art is. It appears easy, and is simply interesting for the audience. But to the artist, it is complicated and hard to produce. Naikaku nails it with this one. It is a head-banger album. It is a jazz album. Maybe even a straight-up rock album. But one thing is certain: the album has music that simultaneously sounds good and yet has high musical standards. This is what people mean when they say "artistic integrity." Not playing tricks on people to entertain them, like pop music, and not obscuring and complicating things to impress the critics, like modernist music.

Definitely a must-have for lovers of jazz-fusion, heavy prog, instrumental bass, or King Crimson. Jethro Tull fans will appreciate Naikaku's amazing flautist. 
Posted Sunday, September 30, 2007, 19:51 EST | Permanent link

Their website:

http://www.naikakunowa.com/