Navigating You Through the Progressive Underground

Style: progressive metal, metalcore, melodic death metal (mixed vocals, Japanese lyrics)
Recommended for fans of: Between the Buried and Me, Imperial Circus Dead Decadence, Bullet for My Valentine (?), DragonForce (??)
Review by: Sam
Country: Japan
Release date: 25 March 2020

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the Missed Albums 2020 issue of The Progressive Subway.]

I absolutely hate metalcore. Outside of some Bullet for My Valentine nostalgia, it is absolutely the genre I dislike the most. The “tuff guy” attitude, the whiny clean vocals, the focus on chugging breakdowns (and general percussive nature of the genre), and the thoroughly unpleasant harsh vocal style all make for a style I just for the life of me cannot get behind. And progressive metalcore is frequently even worse with its chaotic sounding transitions (looking at you, BTBAM), annoying weedly weedly leads (cough Protest the Hero cough), and often djent-“enhanced” breakdowns, making the music not just annoying, but also sound lifeless (Periphery is the bane of my existence).

So, if this is a genre I Loathe so much (pun intended), why am I the one reviewing this? Well to be honest, I don’t really know either. Curiosity is a strange beast sometimes. It once caused me to listen to Eyehategod’s entire discography despite hating almost every second of it (someone should tell them that good songwriting is a virtue, not a curse). One other time it made me listen to Helstar’s magnum-opus Nosferatu 10 times in two weeks to see if it would affect my enjoyment of the record (it still sucks). And I guess now it made me listen to some progressive metalcore from Japan. Well, here goes nothing.

And weirdly enough, I do not hate this on the whole. Now don’t get me wrong. There are still plenty of parts that make me want to puke, but I found most of this record to not just be listenable, but it was actually amazing at times. I expected Between the Buried and Me-style chaos, but most sections are pretty straightforward. There are still chaotic parts, and the songs are very dynamic; but they generally stick to one feel at the time making it relatively easy to follow what’s happening. They also include frequent melodic sections, giving me enough rest to prevent ear fatigue of all the extremity. Because make no mistake, this band can get crazy. There are parts with any number of fast and heavy riffs, intense shouting vocals, crazy drumming, nuts transitions, and soaring guitar leads. It’s totally bonkers, and I imagine someone who doesn’t have an almost primal dislike of this genre to enjoy this a lot more than I do.

If it wasn’t clear already, this record is extremely dynamic. They can switch between the aforementioned extremity and gentle acoustic clean vocal parts at the drop of a hat, and not once do the transitions feel jarring. This band just knows how to construct songs. Sometimes it feels extreme, sometimes it feels ethereal, and other times it almost sounds like DragonForce, which I guess was also a major factor in drawing me to this album. I adore power metal, and Arise in Stability can come really close to sounding as such at times. I wouldn’t say it’s super eclectic in terms of left-field influences (though I suppose one could cite the rap part in “Magnetclock”), but this band has that general intangible metalcore/melodeath/power metal sound which is so unique to Japanese metal. And there are shades of heavy metal and thrash metal too at times (and they’re pulled off well!). It’s never monotonous or boring with this band. How they can be so bombastic and crazy, yet always stay grounded in their songwriting is absolutely beyond me.

At this point I’m not sure what else to say. It never even once crossed my mind that this record is 61 minutes, because it’s over in the blink of an eye. It’s excellently produced too. Modern, but not overtly compressed, and each instrument is audible at all times. And it should go without saying at this point that the instrumental performances on this are mind-blowing. This album is amazing, and it completely shattered my expectations for what metalcore can be (or as the fourth track on this album says: “Madness Gives Rise to Enlightenment”). I don’t think I’m going on a metalcore craze anytime soon, but it certainly opened up the possibility. For now though, I will just stick to jamming this album, because it’s absolutely incredible. What a review to end the year on, damn.


Recommended tracks: Noise Heard in the Moon, Madness Gives Rise to Enlightenment, Atyanta
You may also like: Pathogenic, Pangaea, Hope for the Dying
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: Last Fort Records – Official Website

Arise in Stability is:
– Housuke Taniguchi (vocals, lyrics)
– Masayoshi Onodera (guitars)
– Yusuke Hiraga (guitars)
– Kodai Kaneyasu (bass)
– Suguru Yamashita (drums)


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