Gyze – ‘Oriental Symphony’ (EP 2021)
Rating: 9/10
Release: 26 January 2021
Label: Vicor
The band Gyze out of Hokkaido belongs since their foundation in 2011 to one of the most important representatives of the Melodic Folk Death Metal scene in Japan. Unfortunately the band came only recently to our “radar” and we missed to review their already four full length releases, but I can only recommend you to dig deeper into this great band, as it is worth it. Gyze is offering to you a great mix of Melodic Death Metal (sometimes Power Metal) with a lot of Japanese folk instruments and melodies, abstaining from any J-Rock or J-Pop influences. In 2021 Gyze will release the EP called “Oriental Symphony” and the single “Samurai Metal” was their first extraction from this upcoming album. Along with the single comes a very well made music video, which is available on their official YouTube channel. What Gyze has created here is simply awesome and this is the way how “Samurai Metal” should sound like. Great guitar riffs, strong vocals with an in-going hook and a plenty of use of traditional Japanese folk instruments. Basically you can not get more. Therefore it does not surprise me that Gyze was the first Japanese Metal Band to play at the Summerbreeze Open Air (Germany), at Leyendas del Rock (Spain), the 7000Tons of Metal (USA) and the biggest capacity Death Metal Solo show in Japan. Furthermore in their music video they got support/shout outs from acts as Dragonforce, Frosttide, Sirenia or Mors Subita, which is showing their global presence. This single leaves a big taste for more. If the full EP will be as strong as this single it would be a full score for me! Arigato Gyze!
Tracklist
- Oriental Symphony
- Voyage of the Future
- Samurai Metal
- Etenraku
- Voyage of the Future (acoustic)