Review Summary: Very good post-hardcore/emo album from a Japanese band not named Envy.
1000 Travels of Jawaharlal are a Japanese post hardcore/emo band oft overlooked in favor of
the emo band to come from the land of the rising sun, Envy. While its hard to argue that this is for any other reason other than the fact that Envy have consistently proven that they are plainly one of the best Japanese bands of the past decade, its sad that a band like 1000 Travels of Jawaharlal, that plays a brand of hardcore vaguely similar to what Envy was doing before
A Dead Sinking Story (and thus, a lot of the whole euro skramz scene) gets that overlooked, especially when they put out an album as solid as
Owari Wa Konai.
One thing disassociates 1000 Travels from bands like La Quite or Raein is they had a slightly less chaotic slant in their songwriting, having a large penchant for melody and more clear cut strong structures. On most of the tracks here, there is a pretty obvious pattern, and while that may cause the album to seem kind of repetitive, it helps that they restrained themselves and instead of doing what a lot of other bands are doing, they refrain from playing everywhere and generally run a very tight ship, led by a pair of excellent guitarists that faintly remind of Hot Cross’ duo.
While its hard to not feel as if the Japanese vocals here are slightly weird and humorous, its also hard to deny the passion that went into the singing/screaming. Often a mix of the two, it blends perfectly with the guitar playing to make that ‘intense’ sound that seems to be all the rage these days in scenes across the world. While translated the lyrics lose a little of their poignancy (but still across as honest- “Suddenly you have gone somewhere. We couldn't believe that, we wanted it to be a bad joke.”), unless you are actually Japanese you probably werent listening to this record for the lyrical quality anyways.
All in all,
Owari Wa Konai is a slightly under-appreciated gem from a band that has yet to provide a suitable follow-up, and might have suffered as the explosion of popularity in hardcore during the last few years might have presented them an opportunity to get there name out there even more. As it is, the album is a pretty damn good post hardcore/emo record, something like a mix of Hot Cross and Yaphet Kotto. It lacks a bit of variety, but that’s not a big deal as 1000 Travels of Jawaharlal do what they do, and do it well for the 27 minute duration of the album. While not something to search out for everyone, people into this kinda music would do well to check out
Owari Wa Konai.
