Onmyouza - Hadou Myouou (Review)

About band Onmyouza already said enough. This is so unique phenomenon that for 10 years nothing has been said about them. And today don't know what is Onmyouza - then don't know what the eastern metal scene. On June 6th these guys released a new album "覇道 明王" (Hadou Myouou). Today I will tell you that I found interesting here.

My Rating: 83/100

I spent a very long time digging into dictionaries to understand what the lirycs are about. It was possible with great difficulty and only partially. It took me ten minutes to translate just album title - I translated it as "Wisdom King Dynasty", but this is a very rough translation. Is it worth talking about the complexity of album as a whole? The complexity of the narration is perfectly combined with instrumental parts - for this reason we have been listening to this band for 19 years.

Work of composer / songwriter at highest level. Make compositions at the same time interesting from the point of view of intellectual value and from the point of view of emotions - this is a very rare talent. And in this album you can see this talent. Of course, even here there are songs that can be considered a quickie (2 tracks). However, here also there was a pop patterns. 4 track is similar to pop music on metal rhythm section. Very hook pattern in 8 and 10 tracks - too standard solution. But overall, the album leaves a pleasant impression. I also liked the change in composition construction in 9th track - it changed three times.

Vocalists are something incredible. There is so excellent performance that it remains only to quietly admire. Extreme vocals (1, 5 tracks) are quite an interesting decision in terms of diversity. Also it's necessary to note interesting vocal parts structures - they are different for different compositions.

Instrumental parts - everything is predictable here. It's difficult to call it very complex, but it leaves only positive emotions. Especially liked groove riffs on dropped tuning and the abundance of pinch harmonics (1 track). Something similar is also in 5th track. But it's also worth noting additional instruments. I consider it superfluous to explain that here traditional Japanese musical instruments. Just say that they are applied in such a way that they create a unique atmosphere.

What can you say at the end? They have long released their best albums. Their best albums were Chimimouryou (2008), Kongou Kyuubi (2009) and Kishi Bojin (2011). And now they are repeating a common motive, changing lirycs and general constructions. But there is so much talent here that even as a result of this, excellent and unique compositions are obtained. This idea will last a very long time. I hope this will be true.