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LOVEBITES vocalist asami performs an almost unbelievable feat of magic on the recent Extended Play release GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD (“GLORY”). In one astonishing act, asami causes the soulful rhythm and blues singer of LOVEBITES’ previous work to disappear. It is a remarkable feat of wizardry. asami conjures up a full-throated heavy metal singer in her place.

In early interviews, LOVEBITES spoke of the contrast that asami’s voice, grounded in rhythm & blues and soul music, would bring to their heavy metal sound. This is similar to the concept of the “gap” that BAND-MAID use to describe the cognitive dissonance between the softness of their maid costumes and the ferocity of their music. But in the case of LOVEBITES, the “gap” has a purely musical meaning.

「1」

For those of you who were lucky enough to discover LOVEBITES upon the release of the now highly-coveted The Lovebites EP¸ asami’s voice was indeed a shock. The ferocious opening guitar riffs of “Don’t Bite The Dust” were followed by the sound of a mezzo-soprano voice as clear, as bell-like and as gorgeous as the voice of Sarah Vaughan.  The lyrics (written by the truly gifted composer/bass player miho) were an expression of unalloyed desperation:

The rain keeps falling and falling;
I am crying all alone again;
Time is passing me by,
Not knowing what it’s gonna be.

One could take miho’s lyrics, slow them down and insert them fairly easily into Duke Ellington’s stone-cold classic “Solitude,” one of the forementioned Sarah Vaughan’s most raw, but passionate, performances.

The music that miho wrote to express this searing pain was heavy metal at its most brutal. But the emotions expressed in miho’s lyrics were fundamentally human. There was anger, but there was also a deep sense of vulnerability.

And asami was able to thread the needle between the two very different worlds of metallic brutality and human fragility to create the believable portrait of a woman in the throes of existential agony.

「2」

The purity of asami’s tone was indeed striking, as the four songs on The Lovebites EP and subsequent releases demonstrated. The deep-seated chest voice that asami brought to the opening lines of the song “Scream for Me” had both a sacred purity and a profane thrill.

But asami’s purity of tone was supported by two additional vocal assets.

「3」

In addition to purity of tone, asami’s voice has remarkable power. This may seem to be an obvious attribute for the singer of a heavy metal band. In truth, there are many examples of singers who struggle to project their voices while remaining on pitch.

But the “yeeaahh’s” that asami unleashes – especially those in which she engages in a prolonged, but precisely controlled swoop up an octave – are legendary for their length and their ability to remain on pitch without a distracting vibrato. And those “yeeaahh’s” are always, and I mean always, more wildly impressive on stage than on the studio recordings. (If you have not yet acquired every single one of Lovebites’ live CD’s, DVDs and Blu-ray discs, you are missing some of the greatest live performances you will ever see or hear.)

「4」

The third notable aspect of asami’s voice is her ability to express a variety of passionate emotions. The woman who once said, “I’m not perfect,” when discussing her proficiency in English, seems to have an innate understanding of which words to emphasize and how to curl her voice around them in a way that expresses the most profound longing, the most maddening frustration, or the most exhilarating pleasure. Songs such as “Liar” and “Edge of the World,” both from Awakening From Abyss, provided early showcases for this acutely emotional asami.

Okay, so purity, power and passion are three of the defining characteristics of asami’s truly unique voice.  But that is a bit too facile a statement. There is much more to asami than “three P’s.”

「5」

Singers who have both a deep understanding of their voices and a skillful technique to match this intelligence may also have the rare ability to manipulate pitch, resonance and volume, among other factors, to introduce additional “colors” to the essential tone of their voices. Adjectives used to describe those various “colors” of a voice include words such as dark, bright, open, rich, constricted, etc.

In the world of guitar players (and please don’t ask them, because they will never stop talking), these “colors” represent something of a Holy Grail. The so-called “woman” tone of Eric Clapton (as well as his “Beano” tone or “Brownie” tone) is the subject of endless discussions on guitar forums.

But Clapton had guitar manufacturer, build year, magnetic pick-ups, amplifiers, toggle switches and plectrum attack to create a tone or color. asami has her voice – and her voice alone – along with her fundamental intelligence to control that voice to create the colors that inform LOVEBITES songs.

「6」

asami has always demonstrated the ability to bring different tonal colors to her work. But GLORY takes this asset to another level entirely. The difference in asami’s vocals from earlier releases to Glory is as striking as the difference between the seven “ROY G BIV” colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – and the myriad of colors that lie between those shades – coral, terracotta, tangerine, turquoise, aqua, or magenta, to name just a few.

asami reveals new tonal colors on each of the songs of GLORY and “Winds of Transylvania.” It is impossible to overstate how electrifying the performance of asami is on these five songs.

「7」

On early recordings, asami’s voice has a buttery quality. Her voice has clarity and smoothness. But there is nothing in it that would significantly change the quality of the food – or the music – that is cooked in it. On GLORY, asami’s voice has the complexity of sesame oil. The foods cooked in sesame oil take on additional sensory, textural and visual aspects that butter simply does not have. And, yes, there are nutritional benefits as well.

The first song, “GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD,” is probably the one that is closest to the tonal color that asami used in previous releases. But where “Burden Of Time,” to pick one example, is fairly straightforward in vocal approach, working with primary colors, “GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD” has a dark quality more akin to burnt sienna. Often described as having a toasty quality, burnt sienna is more complex, more burnished, more earthy. That is exactly the sense that one gets in listening to asami on this song, particularly in the chorus when she seems to become obsessed with clearly presenting the positive message of the lyrics.

「8」

But it is in the next song, “NO TIME TO HESITATE” that asami truly shocks the listener. She adopts a vocal color that is unlike anything she has ever sung before. The cold, harsh lyrics that asami wrote to accompany miyako’s chaotic and anarchic music dictate the decision to create a totally new vocal color:

What do you want from me?
What do you want tonight?
I don’t care too much about tomorrow.

There is an unmistakable tension to her voice as she spits these words out, but there is a challenge as well. She brings to mind the brittleness, the sheen and the power of the bronze that covered the armor and shields that Athenian Hoplite soldiers wielded in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans.

asami reaches an emotional climax when she sings “Scream before you think.” She truly sounds like a woman at the end of her rope. And the way she accents “unnecessary” on the third syllable, instead of the second syllable as in idiomatic English, is both perfect for the song and absolutely charming.

「9」

“Paranoia” represents a further exploration of this new, harsher asami. asami’s lyrics, this time written to her own musical composition, again have a savagery that dictates the vocal approach. The character that she represents is disturbed, fearful, almost deranged. Once the listener gets past the extended orchestral introduction, asami enters with the ferocity of a caged wild animal struggling for freedom.

But it is in the bridge that asami achieves an apotheosis of sorts:

Angel or a demon
Good or bloody evil
Pleasure or a pain
Responsive impulses
Breakdown or a cure
A hatred or a love
A chaos or silent peace
Confusion, disorder

She sings these words with a diamond-like clarity. But there is subtle change in volume. This adds an undertone – no, it’s not an undertone, but a palpable threat – of menace that is almost overwhelming in its intensity. There may not be a visual equivalent in the Pantone Color Book – carbon black, perhaps? It is hard to imagine LOVEBITES performing a song as unhinged and demented as “Paranoid” in their Cinderella-white princess costumes.

「10」

In “Dystopia Symphony,” asami returns to a more polished tone. But she overlays a sense of urgency that is unmistakable in its vehemence. In addition, she is able to transition between her “head” voice and “chest” voice through various sections of the song with no discernible change in power. This is asami’s voice at its most golden and shining. Passion, purity and power are all on display.

「11」

As for the bonus CD, “Winds of Transylvania,” that comes with some editions of GLORY, those winds seem pretty damned icy. Again, asami has written words and music of breathtaking violence. The character represented by asami is raging, almost uncontrollably, against the power of those bloodthirsty winds.

「12」

The other members are spectacular, as always, on GLORY. haruna continues to amaze with her ability to find subtle accents and well-timed rolls to bring additional percussive interest to the songs. miho is a beast on bass. And it is no longer possible to easily distinguish the solos of miyako and midori. They have become equally chaotic, equally melodic and equally mesmerizing.

「13」

It is worth mentioning the fact that the producer, engineers and arranger who worked on GLORY don’t seem to have found it necessary to overdub multiple vocal tracks. asami’s voice is for the most part unadorned by effects, overdubs or other enhancements. This is the way that asami should be heard.

It is also worth mentioning that two of the five songs discussed have both words and music written by asami herself, with song doctor Mao making supplemental contributions. Fans know that miho has long since proven herself to be a master of thrash metal composition. miyako has always brought a finely honed knowledge of music history and theory to create complex and interesting compositions. midori, although not as prolific, has written some of the hardest-stomping music ever played by LOVEBITES. And drummer haruna is responsible for composing what may be the prototypical LOVEBITES song, “Bravehearted,” which uses modulation through shifting tonal centers to create a mesmerizing classic.

Now that asami is becoming more active in song composition, LOVEBITES demonstrates an embarrassment of riches. Hopefully, that will mean more frequent releases – and the band is wildly prolific as it is – of full albums and documentation of live concerts.

「14」

In closing, the remarkable change in the vocals of asami does raise one significant concern. This concern is the potential damage to asami’s precise instrument. Vocal cords, unlike a guitar whose neck requires adjustment, cannot be easily repaired. The German conductor Herbert von Karajan, famously mentored the young Italian singer Katia Ricciarelli from a promising lyric soprano career into a full-fledged disaster. Von Karajan thrust Ricciarelli into dramatic soprano roles, primarily in operas by Verdi. Her voice had not yet reached a sufficient level of maturity for these roles. As a result, her vocal cords were damaged. Her operatic career flamed out in a very short period of time.

asami seems to be an inherently intelligent singer. She clearly knows how to use her voice, including precision breathing, use of “cheat syllables,” volume control, and other tricks, in order to navigate the relentless thrash metal tempos of LOVEBITES’ songs. Therefore, the innate understanding of her voice that she demonstrates makes it unlikely that she would engage in any vocal gymnastics that could cause damage to her voice.

「15」

asami’s reinvention of herself is not without parallel in rock music. In the world of Japanese hard rock and metal, the remarkable FUKI of Unlucky Morpheus is a shapeshifter of almost unimaginable creativity. The powerful and intimidating SAIKI of BAND-MAID’s recent releases is unrecognizable from the earnest and charming pop princess of the band’s debut, MAID IN JAPAN.

But what asami has accomplished on GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD is pretty close to unprecedented. At the peak of LOVEBITES’ career, asami has taken the risk of leaving her trademark rhythm and blues style behind and embracing the tumultuous world of the no-holds-barred metal vocalist. asami has become a risk-taking high-speed racer, hurtling without hesitation through a series of dangerous curves. asami delivers a stunning, sensational and above all, shocking, performance on GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD. LOVEBITES is a great band, delivering great music, with a truly great singer: asami.

ページトップの「日本語」をクリックすると、本記事の日本語版を閲覧できます。

For the Japanese version of this article, please click on “日本語 at the top of the page.

GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD
1	GLORY, GLORY TO THE WORLD	asami	midori/Mao	6:24
2	NO TIME TO HESITATE	asami	miyako	4:12
3	PARANOIA	asami	asami/Mao	5:35
4	DYSTOPIA SYMPHONY	asami	miyako	6:42
WINDS OF TRANSYLVANIA
	WINDS OF TRANSYLVANIA	asami	asami/Mao	5:17