The Japanese metal scene is well known for its imaginative and often eccentric approach. It is rich and varied with new alternative and experimental bands appearing and collaborating often. Breaking through the crowds is Osaka-based "brutal orchestra" Vampillia.

Trying to put Vampillia into a neat genre box is almost impossible, but when you factor in an ex-member of Japanese experimental noise rock collective Boredoms, you begin to get a sense of the sublime madness contained within Vampillia's Candlelight Records debut Some Nightmares Take You Aurora Rainbow Darkness, produced and recorded by Ben Frost at Greenhouse Studios, well-known as Bjork and Sigur Ros's studio in Iceland.

Recently, Vampillia welcomed drummers Tatsuya Yoshida from Japanese noise duo Ruins and Talow The Tornado from hardcore band Nice View to the group and they, alongside Toyohito, perform alongside a cast of ten (sometimes more) musicians to create an "experimental pop-style brutal orchestra". Chaotic vocals, discordant guitars, beautiful piano, elaborate strings, unsettling noise and several powerful drum sounds are harmonized as one into a sound the band calls "a beautiful chaos".

In the last few years, Vampillia have played, recorded and toured with artists as influential and varied as Attila Csihar (Sunn O)))), Mayhem), Vincent Gallo, Thee Oh Sees, Nadja, Atlas Sound, Alcest, Jarboe (ex-Swans), Boris, [b]Melt Banana[/band] and Merzbow among many others.

"We hope the music gives a strong impression of overwhelming speciality and mysteriously universal sounds," the band says. We're sure you will agree.

(Source: candlelightrecords.co.uk)