Living in a Colne, a small village on the outskirts of Cambridge it can be hard to experience anything to do with rock, rap and hip hop. I discovered an amazing realm from a friend of a friend, a barely known genre that is exploding across the Western world. As it spreads from the Far East in the land of the rising sun, it’s J-Rock.

The phenomenal Dir en Grey, rocked the world, and has inspired others to follow in its path, churning out amazing heavy tracks that anyone can jive too. But other bands are slowly playing their tours across our nation, the likes of: the GazettE, An Café, MUCC, Miyavi, Giguramesh, too name a few. Each concert firing hundreds of fans with the GazettE fans selling out the Carling Academy in Islington. Japanese Rock is a broad term that covers the yakuza-like tough types, to men looking more beautiful then women in extravagant outfits. The looks can be categorised loosely into Gothic Lolita, a semi aristocratic look with a dark religious twist; Visual kei created by the J-Rockers themselves to express their music with what they wear and an offshoot of that being Oshare kei, consisting of sweet bubble gum colours seen littered around Harajuku Bridge in Tokyo.

It’s a lethal combination of heavy rock, punk and metal woven with one of the most elegant languages and misunderstood cultures. People are often put off by the language barrier, but the heavy music riffs can lull anyone into a trance with a dialect that forms the story inside the listeners mind, or portray the lyrics them with blinding shows and mesmerising soulful tones.

Its unfair people are missing out on the chance of amazing music because of the fear of listening to something that isn’t the native tongue. England has the natural gift to make our skill of queuing (a mundane task) incredibly exciting, and outside a J-Rock gig its nothing but a hive of activity and colour. When it comes down to showing the world that England, a multicultural society, can create a wondrous story to entice the world, to come and rock with us! J-Rockers have a vision, spiriting away all of those negative manifestations of integrative power, to laugh, talk, share and connect with someone because you are on the same wavelength and think alike, its not so hard. J-Rock is my vice, and as the younger generation, all I ask is for you to give it a shot. We changed the world in the 60s, and with the terrible reputation we seemed to have gained overnight due to a few people, we should show Tonight with Trevor McDonald that we aren’t all gun wielding maniacs.

Perhaps out best isn't good enough but we should give them a run for their money before we give in, and J-Rock can drive a much needed message forward. So I leave you with the words Miku promised England when An Café came to England, summing up our impact on the band; “We will be back!”

Text by Sarah Moore | Illustration by OHGEE