Oh how I love the Japanese culture. From their food to their crazy game shows and now their heavy metal. Seikima-II is one of those bands that I ran across completely by accident. One great happy accident. Seikima-II is a heavy metal band, formed in 1982, complete with it’s own mythology and stage costumes. From Wikipedia:
The band’s name literally means the “Holy Devouring Demon II”. According to the mythology created by the band, Seikima-II is a group of “Akuma” (demon race), from the futuristic hyper-evolved dimension “Makai”, that are preaching a religion, in order to propagate Satan through the use of heavy metal music. Each member is a demon of a different hierarchical class, with His Excellency Demon Kogure being leader of the “Akuma” and His Majesty Damian Hamada being the “Crown Prince of Hell”. In accordance to the prophecy and after completing their world conquest, the band disbanded at the end of the century on December 31, 1999 at 23:59:59
Seikima-II is what KISS tried to be and failed at. Where KISS thinks they are heavy, with their lame, non-heavy sound, Seikima-II is actual heavy metal. The album I was lucky enough to find is their 1999 compilation album Blacklist. It is nineteen tracks of pure metal mayhem. Similar in style to bands like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, their music is filled with wailing guitar leads, catchy riffs, melodic rhythms and screaming vocals. One interesting thing with Seikima-II vocally is, they sing in both english and Japanese. The fact it’s a foreign language doesn’t impact the music at all. Some of His Excellency Demon Kogure vocals sound almost exactly like Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden back in his prime during the 1980’s, only in Japanese. On Blacklist songs ahve titles like “Dead Symphony“, “Kill The King Ghidrah.” The song “Fire After Fire” is one of my favorites on the compilation, similar in style to Iron Maiden’s song “Aces High.” It has some scorching lead guitar work, riffs that keep things moving at a fast pace and melodic drum beats that never let up.
If you are a fan of old school style heavy metal and dig bands like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden you NEED to get all you can of Seikima-II. You will enjoy every minute of it.