ATTENTION ALL JAPANESE WOMEN: NEVER GET NEAR RIVERS CUOMO

The Japanese are good at a variety of things; porn, professional eating, arbitrary censoring, developing video-games, getting stereotyped and participating in weird-ass gameshows. When it comes to music, they only seem to succeed in "visual kei" (Japanese scenesters trying too hard to revive bullshit glam-metal wankery), but then I found out about MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS, an awesome shoegaze trio (another thing about Japanese music: Bands are almost always referred to in ALL CAPS or all lowercase.) By the first track of their newest album, Zero Comma, Irotoridori no Sekai, I knew I was in for something. By the last track, I found my album of the year. As expected, the guitars are heavily distorted, but the drumming is fucking insane, and the (female) vocals are very J-popesque. If you've ever played a Katamari Damacy game (if you haven't, I suggest you do sometime soon), MotFD sounds like something from the soundtrack, only more serious. Not convinced yet? Track four (RAT) sounds like a goddamn boss battle from Megaman. ONE DAY is very dreamy, and will most likely make you feel lonely, even if you don't know what the fuck they're singing. Zero Comma, Irotoridori no Sekai is amazing overall, and there are about five other releases from MotFD, so there's plenty more where that came from.

Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeams!

Dream-pop, for me, is hit-or-miss. It seems that I get either an hour of ominous static crap or provocative sounds that turn the room around me into outer-space. Dreamend's Maybe We're Making God Sad and Lonely falls into the latter category.

You are greeted by a humble-yet-awesome opening track of spacey guitars and chimes syncing perfectly, and swooped into the second track: An old lady (quite obviously from the South) reciting the events of an old ghost story with almost triumphant-sounding music being dreamily played in the background. This goes on for five minutes, but it intrigues me (you might not feel the same way.) It's not until the third track do we hear real vocals, and they're very refreshing. Imagine Thom Yorke's voice, but deeper. The next track is basically "I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaake up, yesterrrrrrrrrrrrrrdaaaaay" over and over again with, yup, more dreamy guitars. Mary Cogswell and Fred Vaillancourt is a girl's nervous breakdown set to music. Think about that. The last track (New Zealand) pales in comparison to the former five, but it can still stand up by itself. I'm awful at writing conclusions. This is awkward. Go away.

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand
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After I recently fell in love with 'entry-level' drone bands Sunn O))) and Earth (BWOOM SOUNDS LIKE MY FRIDGE INORITE) I decided to move onto less 'bwoom' styled drone and I got recommended this, it's amazing shoegaze influenced drone and alot different to what I expected.

Even if you're not into drone (probably 2deep4u) I really recommend this, because you'll see it more as a shoegaze record with drone influences and the vocals are insanely good, and I mean REALLY good. The Angelic Process likes to make everything come in at once and it just sounds amazing.

p.s. if any drone fans are reading this and thinking 'WTF is this guy on about?' then I apologise, I'm new to the genre :3c

I don't normally like shoegaze, but...

LSD and the Search For God - LSD and the Search For God
Link

Really good shoegazy-dream pop, not really sure how to explain this but it's god-tier stuff so just give it a try. Best tracks: Starting Over, This Time