When I think about the past decade of Japanese music something which comes to mind is the number of debuts by hard rock bands with female vocalists. Inchworm belongs to that group, releasing their first music in 2006. Two men founded inchworm: guitarist ‘atsusix’ and drummer ‘cotal’. They filled out their roster by recruiting bassist ‘Quazwar’ and vocalist ‘Carey’. After two triple A-side singles in 2006 and 2007, inchworm released their eponymous first album in 2008—my apologies for not knowing the specific date like usual.
The music of inchworm (the album) has all of the usual emo-rock stylings of the past decade. However, Carey distinguished the band from their contemporary peers with her vocal range. While she doesn’t have the most crystalline voice her singing is notably different for its complete lack of anything guttural. Carey’s lyrics are also entirely in English. Her pronunciation has the characteristics one could expect from a non-native speaker, and her writing has occasional errors (e.g. “They said my songs was good”), but overall remains better than most.
Inchworm went through a variety of line-up changes following this album. Cotal left, replaced by the drummer Keita; bassist ‘mo:to’ took over for Quazwar; ‘mak-t’ joined as a second guitarist; and Carey began going by the name Ari. However, atsusix’s song-writing and Carey/Ari’s lyricism served as an anchor and foundation for inchworm, softening the inconsistencies that often accompany large member shifts. I haven’t seen anything from inchworm in two years though. I do not follow the band closely enough to feel confident in saying they’ve disbanded, but personally I’ve seen no mention of any live performances since late 2011–early 2012. If anyone knows what they’ve been up to I would greatly appreciate any info.
My uploads are still going to be infrequent and random for the rest of this month, but today while ripping inchworm I set aside a stack of CD’s I intend to rip and upload this week as I have the time. Until then, I hope you all enjoy this album as always! :)