JILUKA, What Lies Below - 7/22/26 - Fresno, CA - Strummer's

The metal quartet What Lies Below was the first band I saw on the night (I missed Mirrorcell, the opener), but it wasn’t a standard quartet. They rolled with two guitars and no bass, and the songs weren’t missing anything. Each shouted lyric, each strummed power chord, each strike of a drum hit me with the anger that it was intended to convey. It was a ferocious performance, but not without softer elements. The machine gun kick drum was the jab, keeping your attention and measuring commitment. The chord changes were the shots to the body, causing you to drop your guard. And the guttural shouted vocals were the crosses and hooks coming straight to your chin to knock you out. But, they also threw feints with some finger picked melodic arpeggios played higher up the neck and some emo vocals sung by one of the guitarists to keep you off balance before attacking again.

JILUKA headlined the night and they put on an incredible show. For anyone who doesn't know, which I assume is virtually everyone, Jiluka is a metal band from Japan. But they're not just a metal band, they're what is called a 'visual kei' band (according to their Wikipedia page). For anyone who doesn't know, which I assume is also virtually everyone, visual kei is an aesthetic that emphasizes flamboyant, extravagant stage costumes with elements of cross-dressing and androgyny. In short, they looked like a bunch of video game anime characters. But they were video game anime characters that are also very good musicians.

Their was foundationally metal, with the kick drum hitting a billion beats per minute and the guitars and bass keeping pace with insane chord changes and solos, but it was more pleasing to me than metal usually is. I think it was because they had some electronic elements to their songs, but parts of it also sounded like a video game soundtrack at times. Like you're choosing your character from amongst the anime video game characters on stage, and then that character is using their musical ability to defeat the enemy.