To some extent,
Ling Tosite Sigure aren't really doing anything new from album to album, but with music as rich and condensed as theirs, it's easier to overlook than with most bands -- especially since they are consistently good at their thing.
Still a Sigure Virgin? offers more of their trademark claustrophobic emo hardcore that should come across as completely unlistenable, but is in fact catchy enough to chart in the unforgiving J-music environment. The rhythm section rumbles along at frantic speed, like the Juggernaut chariot with rocket boosters, the guitars let more good riffs fly within one song than lesser acts produce within a lifetime, and the two vocalists, male and female, sound equally shrill and grating, which is utterly appropriate in the album's context. The thing about
Ling Tosite Sigure is, however, that their hysteria is tightly controlled -- at least to the point where the band never loses sight of that dramatic, anxious, but alluring melody (think maybe
Amity Affliction, only twice as fast). In fact, they're even less prone to unorthodox riffs than classic emo rockers with their angular guitar lines -- the music is straightforward, but they simply pack more of it into the songs, like the end of the world is in half an hour, and they want you to hear their stuff no matter what. Some subtle evolution is taking place, too -- in the past, they were known to go overboard with density, completely drowning the actual music under a flurry of lightning-fast drum runs and guitar buzz, but this time they let it up just a tad, even trying some pianos and acoustics. Those tunes sound as hectic and nervous as the rest -- but it would be simply wrong to have it any other way on
Still a Sigure Virgin?