Tsubakiya Shijuusou - Tokyo City Rhapsody 6 February 2008
Tsubakiya Shijuusou, i.e. ‘Tsubakiya Quartet’, is one of those bands that struggled to keep a stable line-up. Ironically, considering their name, the band had four stable members for only five years out of their eleven year career 2000–2011. However, it was during those five years 2005–2010 that Tsubakiya Shijuusou released the majority of their work.Vocalist and guitarist Nakada Yuuji created the band in 2000. He spent two years in Sendai performing with different musicians before finally recruiting Kodera Ryouta as a drummer and Nagata Takashige on bass. Nakada was writing music all throughout these two years and the volatile membership of the band seemed to affect his influences. Tsubakiya Shijuusou was always a rock band, but the early flux of members and Nakada’s efforts to form a stable band brought him into contact with jazz-rock musicians, metal, electronica, light-rock and pop, and so on. Traces of them appear all throughout their discography, including this album.As a trio it took only a year before an indie label signed Tsubakiya Shijuusou. A year later they would released their first indie album, Shinkou Naru Shinzou, and then go on a period of touring. That was the time, in early 2005, that the band recruited its fourth and final member, guitarist Yasutaka Takurou who coincidentally would be the first to leave the band. They released one more indie album, Bara to Diamond, and then signed with a major label, Warner Music Japan.As a quartet Tsubakiya Shijuusou proved energetic in the work. In the period of 2005–2010 the band never had less than two releases per year, for a total of eight singles, three studio albums, and one best-of album. This album, Tokyo City Rhapsody, appeared in the wake of a series of singles. It was the band’s first major studio album, and even though it is a firmly rooted melodic rock album, one can hear the faint whispers of different genres that affected Nakada’s song-writing as he would write most of the band’s music. He was never extremely experimental during those years, but he and the rest of the band produced a refreshing flavor of rock, particularly when compared against the mainstream chart-toppers of the time.Two years later Yasutaka would leave following their second album, and a year after that the Tsubakiya Shijuusou came to a rather abrupt end. The only releases after Yasutaka’s departure were compilations, one which focused primarily on their music post-2006 and another which focused more on the 2002–2005 era. They’re worth getting if you enjoy the band, as personally I think their indie work prior to mid-2005 sounded promising but was hit or miss in general, and the compilations weed out those ‘misses’.I’m going on and on again…. At any rate, enjoy the album!