Dir en grey

Japanese musical exports armed with experimental hard rock or punk sounds usually have strong ties to their native underground scene. Not so with gothic industrial-metalers Dir en grey. Formed in 1997, the quintet became the first independent band to chart a single in the Japanese Top 10 the following year and has been a formidable commercial success ever since. Though it has roots in the teen-oriented Japanese genre known as Visual Kei that emphasizes glammed-out, androgynous image over musical content -- think Sigue Sigue Sputnik shot out of a cannon full of fairy dust -- Dir en grey has evolved into a much darker, more metallic beast. The band kicks off its most recent album (and first to receive stateside release), Withering to Death, with a series of relentless songs spotlighting lead singer Kyo and his versatile instrument. Whether crooning sweetly on soaring choruses or screaming psychotically over punishing riffs dealt by guitarists Kaoru and Die, Kyo and his densely multitracked vocal contributions carry the bulk of the melody and emotional weight in Dir en grey's music. The language barrier presented by Kyo's hodgepodge of Japanese and largely unintelligible English might pose a problem to the average American industrial-metal fan, but a listener doesn't really need a lyric sheet and a team of U.N. translators to get the gist of this desperate howling. Tougher to excuse is the polished drama heard on radio-friendly power-ballad yawners "Itoshisa Ha Fuhai Nitsuki" and "Higeki Ha Mabuta Wo Oroshita Yasashika Utsu." Still, if headbanging goths can get past the far greater testicular deficiencies of a band as lame as Sweden's H.I.M., there's no reason the twisted and adventurous emo-metal of Dir en grey can't find an audience in the U.S.