Artist: Sparta Locals
Song: Boku wa Lion (僕はライオン)
From album: Dreamer
Genre: Gutrock
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When I heard this song on Rock Sick I had to have it. Sparta Locals are a very well known band in Japanese indieish circles but somehow I never gave them a chance, filing them away in the “all sound the same” category. If I had heard this song first it would have been a different story altogether.

This song can stand alone completely on its own merit, and the chorus can stand alone in the song, and the vocals stand at the heart of it all. This is the kind of feeling that got me into genres ending in “core” in my youth. It’s powerful and forceful in the way that you can feel him pushing sound out with every muscle in his body; every cell is strained to the limit. It’s that utterness that inspires. At times it sounds like he’s putting parts of his life into it, condensing memories, and emotions, and breathing, and aching all at once, wrapping them around simple words, (i’m a lion) and heaving them with all his might into the atmosphere.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Japanese Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.