In Decibel’s never-ending quest to expose our gentle readership to as many corners of the extreme music universe as possible, today we bring you Dehumanizing Itatrain Worship. Hailing from China, D.I.W. are leaders, and possibly sole purveyors of, the sub-genre known as Anime Slam. A quote nabbed from their Metal Archives page describes the sometimes quartet/sometimes quintet as a band whose “image is heavily influenced by the multimedia franchise, Love Live! School Idol Project Series. The majority of the band’s song titles are Love Live! references, with their early material also being death metal re-arrangements of existing songs.” Their 2016 debut, μ’Sick featured songs like “Suicide Happy Holiday,” “僕らのSLAM 君とのSLAUGHTER” and “Unbalanced Brutal Love” with the band themselves proclaiming the EP as “six intense tracks of anime induced brutality following in the footsteps of death metal acts such as Anal Bleeding, Ingested, Visceral Disgorge, and more. Dehumanizing Itatrain Worship proves Anime Slam is here to stay.”
As kids are wont to do these days, the band is releasing tracks from their upcoming second album (to be released via Stillbirth Records/Gorehouse Productions) in fits and starts and while the work is in progress. The latest offering from their upcoming full length is the single/video for “Brutal Panzer,” a track that’s dripping with loads of dramatic chugging, djent-y chugging, video game noises, pinch harmonic squealing, breakdowns bloody breakdowns, and guttural vocal chameleon-ry, which isn’t actually be a word, but up until a minute ago, most of you didn’t know Anime Slam was a thing. Whether it needs to be a thing or not, that’s for you to decide. Says vocalist Kiryu Zhang: “We’re super excited to introduce our new single, ‘Brutal Panzer’! This is our second track following ‘Song of the Neet’ and one of the standout songs from our upcoming album. I can’t wait to hear what you all think—hoping you’ll love it as much as we do.
“While working on this album, we spent a lot of time reflecting on whether modern instrument sounds truly fit us. In the end, we thought it would be cool to revisit some of our earlier styles. For this song, we even brought back a member from our first EP days to help with the arrangement, adding a special touch to the track. The inspiration for ‘Brutal Panzer’ comes from the anime Girls und Panzer, which tells the story of girls driving tanks. Our guitarist is a huge fan of this show and I feel it mirrors our music well—it’s both sweet and kawaii, yet powerful and brutal. Many might see Anime Slam as just crudely mixing anime samples into slam brutal death metal, but for us, it’s about crafting death metal that sounds like an anime song, creating a unique musical experience. Now, we focus more on blending different music styles seamlessly to offer something fresh and exciting.
“So far, we’ve completed four to six songs for the new album, aiming for a full-length release of around nine or ten tracks. I know everyone’s eager, but we really want to take the time to perfect each piece. Unlike our last album, which was released in 2023 but mostly written around 2018, this new collection reflects our true aesthetic and thoughts over these couple of years. I believe it will be heavier, crueler, more fun, and more kawaii. I’m really looking forward to the day you all get to hear it!”
“Brutal Panzer” Digital pre-save link
