Highly Recommended: The Mad Capsule Markets
April 21st, 2008 Posted in MusicIn 2004, I went with my then girlfriend to SummerSonic, a Japanese music festival. My main intention was to see Nine Inch Nails (and they were awesome), but I also checked out Slipnot, Deep Purple, and a couple of other acts. By far the biggest surprise was a J-Loud band called the Mad Capsule Markets.
They were just that- LOUD~! and I was pretty impressed by the fan base that throbbed in front of them. Although I couldn’t quite understand the songs, they were fast-paced, energetic, and heavy. Unfortunately, me being a bloke and all, trying to hide my true inner TITAN, pretended to ignore the band, as I didn’t think the ladies with me were enjoying them… Now I know different, as the girl I went with that day is now my wife, and our favourite band– both for listenin’ and karaoke-in’– is the Mad Capsule Markets.
They are a four-piece band (three permanent members); are kind of punk, kind of metal, and kind of industrial; sing in Japanese and English (the ratio is possibly 60:40 in favour of Japanese); and they rock my f***in’ socks off. The important thing to note, however, is not that I find them awesome, but that everyone I have introduced them to has pretty much agreed with me (provided they like this kind of thing). They are really that good.
The singer, (Hiroshi) Kyono, has a really original voice, kind of gravelly, but never venturing into death metal
territory. The songs are varied: some are heavy (”Grim Monster”, “Tribe”), some are slow and kind of poppy (”Island”, “Good Girl”), most include some kind of rap-metal, and others are kind of punk anthems, often protesting to some degree– but it’s not so much the meaning of the words that makes the songs so powerful, but more so the meaning that’s inherent (check out “Water?” for an example). You can really feel it in all of the songs, regardless of whether you can understand the words being sung (”Pulse”, [arguably] their most famous track, is a good example, sung in English, but the words don’t matter). Of course, it helps that a lot of the songs use repetition to carry the listener along (as mantras are wont to do)…
The other, and probably the most influential (to be fair, the drummer, Motokatsu [Miyagami], was also around since the band’s inception), driving force behind the band is Takeshi Ueda- bassist, programmer, backing vocals, and all-round kick-ass bloke (well, I reckon he probably is). Much of what makes the band friggin’ awesome is his mastery of electronica… Seriously, just check them out, if you like rock, particularly towards the heavier side, you’re bound to get into them.
Personally, as a huge fan of the Capsules, I love all of their songs passionately. That said, you may not. I had friends visit me in Japan who, after listening to only one album, scoured Tower Records in Shibuya for every last CD they could find- I think together they walked away with about 8 CD’s total… The power of the Capsules… However, if you are interested in checking them out, I would recommend the best of “1996-2004″- the white album, as a starter. Simply because this contains the most marketable songs, and almost all of them are (mostly) in English. From there, the black album “1990-1996″ would be the logical next step, but don’t be surprised that the majority of songs there are in Japanese, and are a lot more “raw”, so to speak (although I like these songs for their rawness). Next best would be “020120″ the live CD (the DVD kicks anus if you can find it… I found it easily in Japan, along with the Best of DVDs- both also recommended, but I couldn’t find any of them on Amazon.com), which shows how awesome they are live. The best of their standalone CDs would have to be … “Digidoghedlock” or “CistmKonfliqt”, although I do love them all! The best songs? I’ll let you decide, but most of my biggest faves are listed above… Can’t forget “Koen-e ato sukoshi” (Translation: “A little further to the park”), or “Ayatsuri Ningyo” (Translation: “Puppet”). But like I said– all of them are arguably sweet and nun-kissingly awesome.
A negative… On March 31 2006, the band announced on their homepage that they were going on hiatus (link to the announcement- all Japanese). Probably indefinitely. Each member has started a new project, and it doesn’t look like they will regroup (but who am I to say, really?), but fingers crossed…
Mad Capsules do rule! Good times