World’s End Fruit Basket is the second studio album from Japanese alternative metal band Ikd-sj, released in 2009. The album represents a maturation of the sound of The Mortuary, the group’s first album released three years prior. A primarily nu-metal album that draws inspiration from many of the genre’s prominent artists from the early 2000s, most of the songs on the record are harsh, chaotic, and energetic. Vocalist Akira Ogiishi raps, screams, and sings demented lyrics throughout the album in both English and Japanese, often switching between the two multiple times within one song. However, this album is not content to be purely nu-metal, with several tracks from the second half featuring more experimentation as well as a calmer, more ethereal sound. The combination of these more traditional and experimental elements makes World’s End Fruit Basket one of the most interesting releases of the Aughts.
World's End Fruit Basket is a typical Japanese take on nu metal. Like fellow countrymen Dhidalah (spac-rock) and Bo Ningen (noise rock) the music goes through a meat grinder and something weird comes out. The songs and album go in every direction and the dynamics change a lot. It's a bit messy and unconstructed at times. Still It like the original result.
I hated this but also dug it. I do not enjoy nu metal, but somehow ported through the Japanese lens it works at times.
The vocals are a bit all over the place and since it's in Japanese I have no idea what is being said probably helps. It's also way too long.
Nonetheless, it's kinda more what I want to listen on this user list. It didn't work for me but I am happy to have listened to it.
My personal rating: 2/5
My rating relative to the list: 3/5
Should this have been included on the original list? Slight yes.
Given this started off sounding like the musical equivalent of Finnegan's Wake, I fully expected to hate this listen. There's something about the different cultural lens on nu-metal here though that kept me around for the whole extended runtime – once I understood the LP's groove, it started to fly by. There's some interesting chaotic arrangements, the instrumentals are well-done and come through the roughshod production, and even the vocals grew on me a bit. The switch-up in dynamics at the end showed some range as well. Great add, don't know if I'll return to this one but regardless I love when out-there albums I would never have found on my own pop up here.
Japanese nu-metal. Sounds like Korn/Slipknot by times. Interesting to hear the Japanese's take on the genre. The almost rapped lyrics are sung by someone who seems to have marbles in his mouth, so you can't really make out what he's saying. Plus half the lyrics are Japanese, and the screaming sounds like Call of Duty Zombies lol. They like to do that thing Korn does where they almost whisper lyrics, which is immediately followed by a violent beat drop and a lot of growling. Overall, an interesting listen. I like it better than American nu-metal. This album does suffer, however, from being way too long.
Favourite songs: Celeb Hunter, oDdEyヨ, Ichigo-philia, きみよし, Last/Exodus
Least favourite songs: Black Apartment, World's End
2/5
I think I might be glad I didn’t get all the lyrics… the Cookie Monster vocal delivery style made the question of whether they were singing in Japanese or English moot. I’m not into this metal style much, although there were occasional diversions into other styles - but I’m afraid this album was just too long and started to feel quite punishing to listen to. While I have grown to respect the harder styles more in this project, I just couldn’t get into this one.
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