Ladies and djentlemen, today I'm here to report a meteor strike. Late reports of a fireball seen entering the skies over Japan. It's of course the awesome Crystal Lake and their single Apollo. I came across this little belter about a month ago and colour me impressed, it's ace.
Easily the best thing to hit our ears from the Japanese shores since Crossfaith, Crystal Lake have brought their new take on the djent/metalcore development and caught plenty of us off-guard. The Tokyo-based metalcore outfit have been around for a number of years, but now after a line-up change and a quality couple of albums they've rejuvenated and brought us Apollo.
Throwing together the guitar tones and rhythms of djent with the more modern elements of the metalcore genre along with more synthy/nintendocore elements, they've created a crazy love-child of everything that we've come to love about modern metal. The contrast with these elements in the more melodic vocal sections and lead riffs is well used and gives Apollo a really unique atmosphere.
It's full of anguish and dismay, lovingly represented with Kinoshita's lyrics and all round well balanced between the differing elements. It's heavy without being completely overbearing, and has something of a mystical quality about it. Possibly an influence from a little closer to home but we'll see. I'm really looking forward to seeing what else is to come from these guys in the near future and I'm certainly not the only one!
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