green with envy, greener from mono

Last night, after our big day exploring a few of Tokyo's neighborhoods, Maya and I met up with this dude named Jumbo, who just happens to be Relapse Records' man in Japan. We meet at the Ebisu JR station; I tell him I'll be wearing a Death T-shirt, he tells me I can recognize him by his High on Fire tee. Besides his HoF shirt, the guy has an awesome "metal" beard, and unlike the many people who don't live up to their own awesome beards, Jumbo rocks.

He's put Maya and I are the list for the Mono/Envy show at the Ebisu venue Liquid Room, a gig commemorating the club's 3rd anniversary. While Envy are a killer band, I much prefer their classic more manic, Converge-esque sound to their more recent Mogwa/Isis-like excursions, and unfortunately their main set tonight is heavy with newer material. Maya and I have had an exhausting last 48-hours or so, and we both nod off at times (actually, I think Maya full-on sleeps through most of their set). But when they come out for their encore and rock three older songs, the crowd of metalheads, hardcore kids, hipsters, and a surprising number of gaijin, which until then has been rather staidly bobbing their heads, goes nuts - a bleached-blond Japanese kid goes crowdsurfing, and Envy frontman Tetsuya Fukagawa jumps off the stage and throws himself, screaming, into the enbrace of the front row. Now, why wasn't their whole set like that?

The night, in my opinion, belongs to Mono, who themselves specialize in that same Mogwai/Isis style of ambient, quiet-to-very fucking loud "post-metal" (as we call it stupidly in rock journolist land), but when they do it right (which is often), they kill. It doesn't hurt, too, that chick bassist Tamaki (wo)mans centerstage wearing a semi-sheer nightgown-ish dress that makes her look one part seductive rock goddess, one part that little-girl ghost from The Ring.



Check Mono out when they tour the U.S. this fall opening for High on Fire, who are putting out what is in my not-so-humble opinion the best album of the year, Death is This Communion on Relapse. Speaking of which, Jumbo hooks me up with a Japanese version of that disc, as well as Japanese versions of a shitload of other recent Relapse releases, many with exclusive bonus tracks. Like I said, dude rocks... though I don't know how/where I'm gonna jam this shit in my already bursting backpack for the next four months...