覇道明王

This is the twelfth album by Onmyo-za, the band from Osaka whose first record appeared in 1999. NEXUS released it on 6 June 2018. Their starting point has not moved -- Heian period costume, the lore of onmyodo and Japanese yokai -- and here too several songs are named after yokai: "Itsumade", "Ippon-datara", "Izuna-otoshi" and "Tesso no Hokuro". The band is built on opposition. As the name says, yin and yang: Kuroneko's female voice against Matatabi's male one, and Maneki's guitar against Karukan's, always set facing each other. They play fast, hard songs and slow ballads alike, and dissolve Japanese folk and popular phrasing into fairly orthodox heavy metal. This record leans to the harder side, which the run from the opening "Hao" into "Haja no Fuin" states plainly. "Ouka Ninpocho (Hado MIX)" is a new adjustment of a song from the 2005 album Chimimoryo, widely known as the theme of the animated series Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls. Besides the standard pressing (KICS-3715) there is a first-press limited edition (KICS-93715).