It's amazing how little the loss of three band-members has affected their sound. Partly because they found a singer with a similar voice, but mainly because I think guitarist Sakura was already the main creative contributor. Yes it's Junna on drums, and I suppose the one-guitarist thing is very similar to Nemophila. I'm sure they will get lots of fans telling them to recruit this or that solo artist!
That's because Sakura Yoshida wrote everything on their full album (and probably here as well) including the lyrics and seemingly chose the direction and who knows what else (the credits from the full album say: Lyrics By, Composed By , Arranged By - Sakura), which is most likely why some people left. It is very much her band and I am curious if they can stay together with the new lineup because some musicians just can not handle that type of thing, especially with how little focus there is on bass an drums in the mix on both the full album and this EP. You can not imagine how much Sakura Yoshida reminds me of Captain Mina from Destrose/Fate Gear with how much influence she has on her band, but hopefully they can stay together now. Edit: btw, I agree that Uyu and Nagi have a similar vocal style.
Thanks for the reaction, man, much appreciated! New HAGANE is really promising, like their new EP very much, especially Hero Time song, they released MV on it recently as well. Sakura is a great guitarist and main composer for their songs. JUNNA is already famous drummer, especially on TH-cam. Nagi is a newbie metalwise and she didn't have much experience before, but they've already performed twice alive and all tickets were sold out, even for upcoming 3 shows it was sold out xD so people got that new line up is fckin awesome! Sayaka is also pretty skilled but i think that she is too shy or don't like to stand out very much, but she was the one who wrote lyrics for Hero Time and the song turned out to be a success on the very first try! So my expectations r very high for this band 🤘🤘
As for the song it's named after 5 swords of Japan, it's their hystoric legacy from the era of samurais. Thus we can see katana in MV ) As for 2nd guitarist, Sakura mentioned that she wanna find one for harmonics, i guess it's in the process. Though it won't be easy since they couldn't work well with the ex one - Mayto, so she need to take in account previous experience and choose wisely this time
Clearly very talented but power metal is just not my personal taste. However the intro track was surprising and I enjoyed it a lot. If you like that kind of thing have you heard of 2 steps from hell? Even if you haven’t you’ve probably heard some of their stuff as they’ve written a lot for movie scores.
Their sound is still too Japanese/epic power metal for me and the production is still pretty bad as far as bass and drums goes just like on the full album (it's again very vocal/guitar/synth focussed), but it's certainly not bad and the musicianship is (just like with the full album) very evident. My biggest issue is the production on the drums, you can only hear the snare and sometimes some cymbals and it's a shame with someone as talented as Junna that you can hardly hear her kicks/toms at times. Overall not bad though and I will probably give their next release a shot as well, I am just not the biggest fan of that epic/cheesy style of power metal that Japan loves so much.
Also, "ken" (剣) means sword in Japanese, among other things depending on the kanji. And since Hagane (鋼) means "steel" it most likely means sword in this case (also the kanji is clearly there). Tenka-Goken (天下五剣) apparently has a whole wikipedia entry in English. I had no clue about that whole thing. And yes, only the guitarist Sakura Yoshida and bassist Sayaka stayed with the band, the other 3 left (2 of them are now in Mana Diagram). The new drummer is indeed Junna.
while i can agree bout drums volume it could be a little higher, but in this new EP Sayaka also took part in composing. So probably Sakura can be more flexible than u describe her to be. Will see when they release full album
@@funnystuff2552 I hadn't checked the credits on the EP yet to be fair. I am sure Sakura Yoshida learned a lot from the split, I think she is a very good guitarist so it would be great if she did. She is still young, so it's not that big of a deal overall, but it would be a shame if she can't manage to keep the band together multiple times with how much people seem to love their sound. Honestly, I think it's a great sign if Sayaka did indeed had some part in the composition as well, some musicians don't need to have input to satisfy their creative fix, but others certainly do (I am pretty sure you can add Saki to that list as well). I will say that I somewhat predicted the split previous time (for Lonesome_Blue as well), I don't have the feeling I had back then at this point. Junna is probably the most difficult one to satisfy with the experience and skills that she has, but I think she turned over a new leaf as well so I don't think it will be a problem for the forseable future. Edit: also, it's not necessarily the volume of the drums but it sounds like the high and low frequencies are compressed way too much so you can hardly hear them. It's something I have noticed in music a lot the last few years, especially in Japanese bands and I absolutely hate it. But to be fair, it's something that is also done because how many people listen to music on their crappy phone speakers and because (from what I understand) it's easier to mix like that so everything sounds as one track with now seperation of instruments (again, what I don't like). To be fair to Hagane, they are certainly not the only band who do this, not by a long shot, but it's very extreme here for the drums to my ears. Ultimately it's just a taste thing.
@@MaartenT it's hard to predict, everyone has their own ambitions, especially musicians like Sakura and JUNNA who was acknowledged for their skills. Though I also hope for the better, current line up has it all to grow big enough for international stage
@@funnystuff2552 I agree, even though I thought the same thing about the previous lineup when they seemed to earn a lot of fans in the beginning. To be fair, they might have had this music in the bag for a while with how quickly they released this EP after getting the new members. But I can certainly see them do well and while their sound might not be for me necessarily, I will most likely continue to check them out.
![Hagane - Hero Time [Review]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dZcGZB878WQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![Hagane - Hero Time [Review]](/img/tr.png)
🤘🤘🤘🤘
It's amazing how little the loss of three band-members has affected their sound. Partly because they found a singer with a similar voice, but mainly because I think guitarist Sakura was already the main creative contributor. Yes it's Junna on drums, and I suppose the one-guitarist thing is very similar to Nemophila. I'm sure they will get lots of fans telling them to recruit this or that solo artist!
what similiar voice, for me they sound absolutely different, Nagi fits way better than Uyu ))
Yeah still sounds surprisingly similar to their last album. Wasn't sure if it's the same vocalist, but I don't listen to Hagane that much tbh.
That's because Sakura Yoshida wrote everything on their full album (and probably here as well) including the lyrics and seemingly chose the direction and who knows what else (the credits from the full album say: Lyrics By, Composed By , Arranged By - Sakura), which is most likely why some people left. It is very much her band and I am curious if they can stay together with the new lineup because some musicians just can not handle that type of thing, especially with how little focus there is on bass an drums in the mix on both the full album and this EP. You can not imagine how much Sakura Yoshida reminds me of Captain Mina from Destrose/Fate Gear with how much influence she has on her band, but hopefully they can stay together now. Edit: btw, I agree that Uyu and Nagi have a similar vocal style.
Thanks for the reaction, man, much appreciated!
New HAGANE is really promising, like their new EP very much, especially Hero Time song, they released MV on it recently as well.
Sakura is a great guitarist and main composer for their songs. JUNNA is already famous drummer, especially on TH-cam. Nagi is a newbie metalwise and she didn't have much experience before, but they've already performed twice alive and all tickets were sold out, even for upcoming 3 shows it was sold out xD so people got that new line up is fckin awesome! Sayaka is also pretty skilled but i think that she is too shy or don't like to stand out very much, but she was the one who wrote lyrics for Hero Time and the song turned out to be a success on the very first try!
So my expectations r very high for this band 🤘🤘
As for the song it's named after 5 swords of Japan, it's their hystoric legacy from the era of samurais.
Thus we can see katana in MV )
As for 2nd guitarist, Sakura mentioned that she wanna find one for harmonics, i guess it's in the process.
Though it won't be easy since they couldn't work well with the ex one - Mayto, so she need to take in account previous experience and choose wisely this time
Clearly very talented but power metal is just not my personal taste.
However the intro track was surprising and I enjoyed it a lot. If you like that kind of thing have you heard of 2 steps from hell? Even if you haven’t you’ve probably heard some of their stuff as they’ve written a lot for movie scores.
Don't think I'm familiar, but I'll give it a go! Thanks 👍
Their sound is still too Japanese/epic power metal for me and the production is still pretty bad as far as bass and drums goes just like on the full album (it's again very vocal/guitar/synth focussed), but it's certainly not bad and the musicianship is (just like with the full album) very evident. My biggest issue is the production on the drums, you can only hear the snare and sometimes some cymbals and it's a shame with someone as talented as Junna that you can hardly hear her kicks/toms at times. Overall not bad though and I will probably give their next release a shot as well, I am just not the biggest fan of that epic/cheesy style of power metal that Japan loves so much.
Also, "ken" (剣) means sword in Japanese, among other things depending on the kanji. And since Hagane (鋼) means "steel" it most likely means sword in this case (also the kanji is clearly there). Tenka-Goken (天下五剣) apparently has a whole wikipedia entry in English. I had no clue about that whole thing. And yes, only the guitarist Sakura Yoshida and bassist Sayaka stayed with the band, the other 3 left (2 of them are now in Mana Diagram). The new drummer is indeed Junna.
while i can agree bout drums volume it could be a little higher, but in this new EP Sayaka also took part in composing. So probably Sakura can be more flexible than u describe her to be. Will see when they release full album
@@funnystuff2552
I hadn't checked the credits on the EP yet to be fair. I am sure Sakura Yoshida learned a lot from the split, I think she is a very good guitarist so it would be great if she did. She is still young, so it's not that big of a deal overall, but it would be a shame if she can't manage to keep the band together multiple times with how much people seem to love their sound. Honestly, I think it's a great sign if Sayaka did indeed had some part in the composition as well, some musicians don't need to have input to satisfy their creative fix, but others certainly do (I am pretty sure you can add Saki to that list as well).
I will say that I somewhat predicted the split previous time (for Lonesome_Blue as well), I don't have the feeling I had back then at this point. Junna is probably the most difficult one to satisfy with the experience and skills that she has, but I think she turned over a new leaf as well so I don't think it will be a problem for the forseable future.
Edit: also, it's not necessarily the volume of the drums but it sounds like the high and low frequencies are compressed way too much so you can hardly hear them. It's something I have noticed in music a lot the last few years, especially in Japanese bands and I absolutely hate it. But to be fair, it's something that is also done because how many people listen to music on their crappy phone speakers and because (from what I understand) it's easier to mix like that so everything sounds as one track with now seperation of instruments (again, what I don't like). To be fair to Hagane, they are certainly not the only band who do this, not by a long shot, but it's very extreme here for the drums to my ears. Ultimately it's just a taste thing.
@@MaartenT it's hard to predict, everyone has their own ambitions, especially musicians like Sakura and JUNNA who was acknowledged for their skills.
Though I also hope for the better, current line up has it all to grow big enough for international stage
@@funnystuff2552 I agree, even though I thought the same thing about the previous lineup when they seemed to earn a lot of fans in the beginning. To be fair, they might have had this music in the bag for a while with how quickly they released this EP after getting the new members. But I can certainly see them do well and while their sound might not be for me necessarily, I will most likely continue to check them out.