just looking over stuff you've wishlisted. drift is prob erra's worst album though it's their best-produced. impulse on the other hand is a fuckin genre classic.

and well, most japanese power metal is awesome. i'm really hyped for the new octaviagrace album, they're basically light bringer 2.0

impulse is the least djent thing erra have done

and yeah i love the prominence of bass in japanese music, a ton. marge litch, alhambra and light bringer all have some insane bass work. so do doom and gargoyle, but given that they're tech thrash, well... it's to be expected. japan doesn't have many tech death bands but they do have defiled, who have a sick bassist.

oh and i'm glad you liked my list :) i'm aiming to make it a pretty comprehensive resource, so i still have a lot of backlog to go through. at this point i've been focusing so heavily on getting through that backlog that i get thrown for a loop when i hear music with english lyrics :V

oh yeah Legacy is another example of japanese music with unexpectedly sick bass

Fisher Price cassette player for life.

Very interesting user

how do you find this super obscure stuff

no it was serious I always wonder how some of these RYMers even have the time to do all this super deep digging. Anyway I'm going to Portland in a couple months for vacay, never been there before