Source: Bounce.com
Straightener will release a live DVD title Black Star Luster on Aug. 31. The DVD features the band’s one-man live show at Zepp Tokyo on June 30, 2005. The DVD also includes video clips for the songs “Discography” and “Against the Wall”.
Source: Bounce.com
Yamanaka Sawao (the pillows), Jiro (Glay) and Nakayama Shinpei (Straightener) have formed a new band called the Predators. The band announced on its official web site it would release its first mini-album, titled Hunting!!!, on July 6. No information is yet available about live dates.
Source: Bounce.com
Straightener releases a new single tenatively titled “The Remains” on June 1. The single will contain three songs and is the band’s first new release since its second studio album, Title, hit stores in January 2005. Title has sold steadily since then, and dates on Straightener’s latest tour continue to sell out. The band recently added a Zepp Tokyo date.
Source: Bounce.com
A retrospective collection the indie-era recordings of Straightener, titled Early Years, hits stores on April 13. The drum and guitar-vocal duo released three mini-albums from 2000 to 2002 — Straighten It Up, Skeletonized and Error. The band also release a split EP with the PeteBest titled Dragorum. Early Years compiles these works on a 22-track album. Straightener released its second studio album, Title, in January 2005.
Source: Bounce.com
Straightener releases its second album, Title, on Jan. 26, 2005. The 13-track album includes the singles “Killer Tune”, “Tender” and “Reminder”, which originally appeared on the mini-album Rock End Roll. Title arrives a year after the band’s debut album, Lost World’s Anthology.
Source: Bounce.com
Straightner will release its next single, “Killer Tune”, on Dec. 1. The band aims for a ’90s British sound on the title track of the new single. A limited edition pressing of the single includes a live DVD of Straightener’s Liquid Room ebisu show on Aug. 26. The DVD is expected to include a digest version of the show with four or five songs.
Straightner is the kind of band I usually avoid — power-pop post-punk, loud as it wants to be, sincere when it has to be, and melodic as all get out.
Under less-skilled hands, this kind of music can be an instrument of unwitting evil. Oh what atrocities have been done in the name of Weezer.
“Emo”. Ugh.
But Straightener doesn’t fall into that trap. If anything, the way the duo — more recently, a trio — plays the hell out of its songs is enough to make naysayers shut up.
Straightener is good. The band’s full-length debut, Lost World’s Anthology, is good.
A lot of credit goes to singer Horie Atsushi — he has an appealing voice that doesn’t indulge in the usual whiny gestures of emo.
Even when the band pulls back and gets all earnest, as it does on “Kiseki no Michi” and “DJ Roll”, Horie doesn’t sound fake.
And the band can get a lot of mileage out of a doubled-up power chord.
“A Song Runs Through the World”, “Mad Pianist”, “Stained Android”, “Freezing” — all these songs start off pretty much the same. Eighth-note power chord, repeat.
On the surface, it’s not remarkable, but somehow, it sounds new. Then Horie comes in with the melody, and it all makes sense.
Lost World’s Anthology is rock ‘n’ roll — simple, loud, passionate.
It’s not an artistic statement — just good songwriting played with a lot of volume.
Hooks play an important part in the album’s appeal but not so much as the performance. Straightener demonstrates that sometimes, swagger is everything.