It’s always nice to see a Japanese band take the effort to mail around promos to conquer the European market. Unsraw also did an attempt with the compilation promo of their latest two albums Abel and Kein. Their style is a mixture with different influences of industrial, gothic, thrash and heavy metal.

 

The first time I listened to this album it took me exactly two songs to switch it off. At that point I really asked myself  if there are  really people who buy this crap. But dedicated as I am to Metalrage I gave the album another try, and another one, and another one. So finally I managed to listen to the album all at once and let me tell you it’s true what they say. Finally you come to a point that your getting used to everything, even this album.

One of the problems with Unsraw is that they’re just too eager to show all their influences in one song which results in a blurry mass that has no logics in it. Of course it’s great that a band explores the boundaries of their musical style but it has to make sense.

 

Not only does the mixture of those styles in one song result in quite a mess, it’s also very hard to keep up with the song. Throw for example Ministry, Moonspell, Arch Enemy and some old stuff like Sepultura and Slayer in a blender. Add one Tellytubby, mix it all together and play it backwards in your CD player. Now you have sound that looks a bit like the songs of Unsraw. But of course that’s not all. Most of the time when I believe I have found a piece of music that isn’t bad it just takes several seconds for Unsraw to rape it completely in a musical way or with a vocal way.

 

This brings me to another point; the vocals, sometimes brutal, sometimes not.

But just like the music most of the time they don’t make any sense. Every time I started to like the brutal thrash vocals and the song started to look great, the vocalist managed to throw in a nasal melodic voice that gives you shivers down your spine. At this point I didn’t even mention the little irritating vocals that are popping up every now and then in every song.

 

Probably Unsraw is very popular in Japan, but like most Japanese things I don’t like it or I don’t understand shit of it. Maybe in a couple of years when there’s an invasion of Japanese bands that are conquering Europe, and the fact that you're from Japan gives you instant success is a nice time for Unsraw to give it another try. Until that time please do us a favour and remain in Japan.