Imaginary Sonicscape

This was the band's first album for Century Media, after they left Cacophonous Records over a lack of promotion. Recording began in September 2000 at Studio Zen and Electric Space Studio and took many months, worked on under Yukito Okazaki of the stoner metal band Eternal Elysium; it was finished in March 2001. The new sound draws on jazz, classical music and Frank Zappa, and the record keeps drifting outside extreme metal altogether — into dub, giggling babies, jazz fusion and disco. The lyrics are about life and death. Mirai put it this way: "Most of the lyrics on the album are about life and death and fear of getting old, fear of losing somebody you love." He also denies the variety is the point: "I always choose the best way to express the feeling. Sometimes it could be heavy guitars while sometimes it could be a classical piano solo. And as a result, sometimes the song has lots of different elements. It's just a result, not a purpose." It did not chart in the United States but was strongly received among extreme metal listeners. Terrorizer placed it tenth in its albums of 2001, and William York of AllMusic gave it four and a half stars out of five: "On one hand, this is great heavy metal, and on the other, it's genuinely twisted experimental/psychedelic music. An amazing, weird album, and also the best place for newcomers to start with this band." The running order here is the original's as printed.