One problem that J-Metal fans encounter is that they don’t get to see their favorite bands live too often. If anyone makes a trek stateside it is usually short and quick. This month it was time for all girl Japanese metal band Nemophila fans to rejoice. Band came to US for a quick trek across the country for a handful shows. Pretty much everywhere they went venues were full. The Gramercy Theatre at the heart of New York City was close to a capacity as well.
Written by Andris Jansons
Nemophila traveled alone. There were no bands in support. So, while doors opened at 7pm and band came on stage hour and fifteen minutes later, crowd had to entertain themselves with few drinks and hustling for a better position closer to the stage.
While J-Metal is really just the same heavy metal and is only referred to the Japanese metal bands, though there are some specifics. One of the first things to note that Japan has multitude of all girls metal bands, just like Nemophila. While Nemophila image is more new age metal fashion, most bands cultivate Japanese anime fashion tendencies. It’s not just fashion, the music thematic often intertwine with anime thematic and music is often used in anime series and vice versa. Of course, this is not the only thing that makes J-Metal to stand out. A lot of Japanese bands don’t shy to sing in Japanese instead of English, and songs touch topics of the Japanese culture and life.
Nemophila is a young band, that formed only four years ago in Tokyo. Girls just a few months ago released their sophomore album called Seize The Fate, and their latest single Rise is getting some serious attention. Mayu on vocals utilizes clean and screamed vocals with such ease and poise, while Tamu Murata on drums is a pure “animal” (I need to choose my words wisely here as I speak about ladies), Haraguchi-san on bass and Hazuki with Saki on the guitars shred just like the guys from Pantera, Slipknot and Iron Maiden (girls wore t shirts of those bands on stage). Band also played Iron Maiden cover of The Trooper. I know I may sound like sexist being in awe of what these girls can do on stage as predominantly I’m used to see dudes in metal bands, so let me just say that Nemophila is amazing true metal band.
See full Nemophila performance photo gallery here.
I don’t think I would succeed going through bands songs on the setlist as most might not be familiar to a larger audience. My main point here would be to advise metal fans to head to the streaming service of their choice and listen to bot of the bands albums, and check their website https://nemophila.tokyo/en/ , as their music is breathtaking and I would suggest that this band will go far in the future.
Unfortunately, New York City was the bands last stop in US, and we need to hold on to see bands future touring announcements.
Nemophila Social Links
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