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The Smashing Skull SessionsThe Smashing Skull Sessions is a podcast, interview and review website, set up to showcase and support the underground rock and metal scenes. Our goal is to promote artists and bands from right across the globe, giving them another voice and another forum in which to get their music out to a greater audience. We also have a new review series, The Review Room, which is another unique way of getting bands and artists some extra coverage and promotion Author: Hosted by Letty Sharp & Produced by Richie Duhig
The Smashing Skull Sessions is a podcast, interview and review website, set up to showcase and support the underground rock and metal scenes. Our goal is to promote artists and bands from right across the globe, giving them another voice and another forum in which to get their music out to a greater audience. The podcast is hosted by me, Letty Sharp, and I hope to offer my guests a different style of interview which is relaxed, unscripted and fun!, The show is entertaining, informative and well worth a listen! However, none of this is possible without the support of you music lovers. We are eternally grateful to every person who subscribes, shares, likes and listens to the shows and reads the reviews. To the bands, be sure to hit us up and let us help in promoting your art, whether through interview or review. Thanks to you all! The Smashing Skull Sessions - Always Supporting The Scene Language: en-us Genres: Music, Music Commentary, Music Interviews Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Episode 133: SIGH interview with Mirai Kawashima (Vocals)
Episode 133
Friday, 9 October, 2026
Japanese metal pioneers Sigh are back today ‘Unputenpu’, the first single to be taken from their upcoming new studio album 'Goh-Ka', alongside a stunning new music video created by Costin Chioreanu. Speaking about the new track, frontman and Sigh mastermind Mirai Kawashima said - “Honestly, I have no idea at all how the song sounds to other people. Shuffle is the world-widely used rhythm and Japan is no exception. I've been using this rhythm in the 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...” Goh-Ka is a new highlight of atmosphere, technical mastery, and meticulously arranged epics of metallic grandeur. Main-man Mirai Kawashima notes this as being as equally personal an album as ‘Shiki’, both musically and lyrically. From a musical perspective, if you were to place the main ingredients of Celtic Frost, Voivod, Black Sabbath, horror movies and Japan into a cauldron and stir it, you will get ‘Goh-ka’. Numerous additional spices such as psychedelic rock, prog rock and classical music are also evident over the album’s close to one-hour duration. The album title 'Goh-ka’has a triple meaning, being: 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 the 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. And 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. I got to sit down with Mirai Kawashima where we talked about how the bands tour of America went, the recording for the bands new album, 'Goh-Ka', and so much more! Avalible on all streaming platforms. Check out Sigh here: https://www.instagram.com/sighofficialjapan/?hl=en Track Played, 'Unputenpu', ©️ all rights reserved Sigh Edited by Richie Duhig of The Metal Cell Podcast. Like, subscribe and always support the scene. Horns up and stay safe 🤘🤘 The Smashing Skull Sessions: https://www.instagram.com/thesmashingskullsessions/
