Style: black metal
Thoughts: Japanese black metal has always been a curiosity of mine. Actually Japanese music in general has been a curiosity for a long time. Much of it can be exceptionally interesting and experimental in ways that you just don't see in the west. Unfortunately, not all Japanese music can hold up to this standard.
Izumo's self titled album is an album I got purely because it was Japanese black metal. I listened to it once and thought it was decent before adding it to my cart. This may have been a mistake.
On repeated listens Izumo offers little in terms of depth. The riffs are repetitive and are largely played over variations of a blast beat. Sometimes repetitive riffs are a good thing, but not in this case. They don't offer that hypnotic quality to them that I would expect from repetitive riffs. The songs either don't go on long enough, or the riffs aren't engaging enough to ever achieve the desired effect.
What this album does offer is about thirty minutes of competent but generic black metal. There is a place for it, but I already have bands that have done this style in my collection. I would rather listen to the originators of a particular style than a copy cat. Especially when the derivative works are merely there to add to the quantity of the genre and not much else.
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