New York’s weather may have been freezing cold last night, but the CD release Party for the J-Rock band GELATINE at Studio BPM was hot. Celebrating with the J-Rock troupe were three other Japanese rockbands NoiceuR, Small Mountain Path, and Geist. These four diverse sounding bands were a great way to learn the many facets that J-rock has to offer.

The show opened with NoirCeuR and the band drew a very appreciative crowd. In fact one of the attendees was the beautiful Mimo Moore one of Ningin’s J-Rock cosplay winners from NYAF08. (I made sure to say hello from us Ninginers). Their performance is a zone that while playing is pure deep musicality. This band can go quite far they have the chemistry of High and Mighty Color but the maturity of Do as Infinity.

Small Mountain Path was the next group. This cute voiced band is a fusion of Asian Folk, spoken word, and 70’s noise punk. The band is great fun and a required taste due to their Kabuki/pansori folky-type lyrical performance. I call this J-rock sort of performance modern-folk-hardcore-rock. If Yoko Ono cloned actual talented versions of herself it would be this band.

And finally, the honored party guests. GELATINE just rocks every which way, as they are true show people. This was the first time I ever heard this band and loved their song Alzheimer’s! It is like the best rock/punk song ever. I really loved their drummer his background gave every song a great wall of support. Sadly though it was the last performance for the group’s bass player Yusuke but the band promised he would work with the band in the future. This band also took many influences for their musical ingredients and I heard some folk music, spoken word, and some 80’s hardcore punk.

The encore band for the evening was Geist. Geist is a band that came all the way from Baltimore Maryland to give play and attend the release party. Geist has the look down pat and they also have a great fusion of modern metal and J-rock sound. What is unique about this band is that their members are not all Japanese yet they sing in Japanese with perfect diction (well when they aren’t roughing their voices). Their lead singer Kane is really gorgeously fit and her big voice seems to come out of no where. Their guitarist Kazuya is sh’way hot his fingers moved amazingly fast.

On to some Hot J-Rock February News… The Final Tour of the Visual Kei Group Blood is underway and one of their Last performances is in New York this upcoming Monday February 2nd at Santos Party House. Opening for them is a well known melodic J-Rock band called Echostream.