Kingcrimsonprog
Jurojin, named after the Taoist God of longevity, are a British Progressive Rock/Metal band, and 2010’s The Living Measure Of Time was their debut mini-album. The record lasts around half an hour and consists of seven tracks, or an intro and six songs.
Musically, the band get compared to acts like Tool, Rishloo, Karnivool and Soen, which while not one hundred percent accurate does give you a fair indication of where on the musical spectrum they sit.
Jurojin in their press releases were keen to point out their Progressive take on Metal, and that they had a Metal Guitarist, a Rock Singer, a Jazz Bassist, and a full time Tabla player adding an Eastern flavor to the percussion end of things. What this essentially means is that there are melodic clean vocals playing over the top of rhythmic music with a slightly Eastern vibe, in shifting time-sigs, and the guitars are often low, crunchy and distorted.
Interestingly, for a band who get compared a lot to Tool, who tour with a Violinist and who have a full-time classically trained Indian Tabla player in their line-up, about half of the album’s content is actually more reminiscent of Nu Metal (the more technical and intelligent side of it) than the modern Alternative influenced Prog bands. These moments almost remind me of Flaw and One Minute Silence. Most notably the single ‘Scars,’ which is very energetic and bouncy.
Elsewhere however, such as on the Tabla-centric ‘Proem’ (which is an album highlight) and both ‘The Equinox’ and the slightly jazzy ‘The Dreaming’ do go much more as you’d expect them to if you’ve found them after being recommended them as a band to check out if you’re into bands like Rishloo, The Mayan Factor, Circe etc.
Fittingly for a Prog band, the record tells a dense story based around dreaming and on top of that its pretty well produced, very well performed and certainly leaves a very good impression. It is a very good release and the band have an awful lot of potential; if they make the same sort of leap that both Tool and Rishloo made between their first and second albums then they’ll be a very exciting prospect indeed.
As it stands, this is a very enjoyable debut and I recommend it if you are generally into this sort of music.