‘Unputenpu‘ is the first single to be taken from Japanese metal act Sigh‘s new studio album Goh-ka, alongside a stunning new music video by Costin Chioreanu.
“Honestly, I have no idea at all how the song sounds to other people,” Mirai Kawashima, Sigh’s singer, expressed. “Shuffle is the world-widely used rhythm and Japan is no exception. I’ve been using this rhythm in songs like ‘Shikigami‘, ‘Ecstatic Transformation‘ and ‘Midnight Sun‘ but I guess I have completed my own Japanese style on ‘Unputenpu’. The guitar lead by Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth definitely gives another boost to the song.
“‘Unputenpu’ expresses the idea that whether a person is blessed with good fortune or struck by misfortune is determined by God’s will, the will of heaven, fate or something totally beyond our control, and we cannot do anything to change it. Anyone could die today or lose somebody you love. Life can be cruel any time. The song is based on my personal experience but I don’t want to talk about the details.”
Kawashima does describe the album as personal, however, both musically and lyrically. Influences are said to include Celtic Frost, Voivod, Black Sabbath, horror movies, psychedelic rock, prog rock and classical music.
The album title Goh-ka has a triple meaning: 業火, infernal fire scorching sinners; 劫火, a huge fire that burns down the world at the end of time; and 業果, karma.
The primary theme permeating the album is kuso-zu, a series of Buddhist paintings or illustrations depicting the nine stages of a human body’s decomposition after death, created to encourage meditation on the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death, and detachment from physical beauty and worldly attachment. It openly shows the harsh reality that no matter how beautiful you are, you’ll be dead and rot sooner or later. Kuso-shi is a poem based on these paintings. The artworks on the cover and in the booklet of Goh-ka are therefore kuso-zu themselves.
The band, who recently toured the UK as a trio, formed in 1989/1990, debuting with the album Scorn Defeat in 1993. From their black metal origins they went on a journey through the strange and the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles and ideas throughout their career.
Sigh merged the avantgarde with their old school roots on 2022’s Shiki, when they signed to Peaceville Records. It was followed by the remaking of their Hangman’s Hymn album as part of the band’s 35th anniversary celebrations, in the shape of I Saw the World’s End: Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV in 2025.
New album Goh-ka was recorded across multiple studios, and mixed and mastered by Lasse Lammert at LSD studios in Germany.
Mirai Kawashima (vocals, Hammond, shinobue, hichiriki, sheng), Dr. Mikannibal (vocals) and Nozomu Wakai (electric and acoustic guitars) are joined on the album by US drummer and percussionist Mike Heller, Yukiko Shibutani (bass, backing vocals), Kreator‘s Frédéric Leclercq (bass), Masayoshi Tanaka (wadaiko, surigane, tebiragane), Ginzaburo Abe (shamisen) and Mikael Åkerfeldt on the guitar solo for ‘Unputenpu‘.
You can stream the single here and check out the video here at RAMzine.
I have been comparing different gambling websites from the UK and noticed that it is surprisingly easy to overlook important details when focusing only on the game selection. One page I found during this research was https://bassw1n.uk.com. I would recommend treating it as a source for preliminary information and taking some time to review the conditions before making any decision. For UK players, checking age requirements, responsible gambling tools, payment rules and withdrawal conditions is particularly important when evaluating an online casino.