myspace band of the week

Sentinels! No worries, this has nothing to do with giant mutant-hunting robots. Sentinels is an “east meets west, west meets east” band centered in Osaka. UK native Matt Wycliffe Lucas landed in Japan in 2005 where he taught at a language school. He met future keyboardist Lito Cruz his first day and they became fast friends. Two years later Cruz and Wycliffe  had to come up with a song-to-sing-along-to for their students and magic happened. The two booked a rehearsal in Osaka’s red light district and worked on Wycliffe’s material.

Wycliffe met their bassist Maki at school. Somehow she was only student left in class and instead of talking about “business trips” they decided to meet at a coffee house and talk music. Maki was exclusively a guitarist but Wycliffe convinced her to pick up the bass and join his band. Lito met their drummer Atsuko at a subway station. She bumped him and he noticed the drumsticks sticking out of her handbag. Delighted to find a drummer, he invited her to rehearsal.

The three songs on myspace come from their demo CD available from Flake Records. “Telescopic” is a great piano driven song. One thing that is kind of surprising is the Claudio Sanchez quiver in Wycliffe’s vocals, which is even more apparent in “People Are Everywhere.” I’m not accustomed to hearing that quiver in happy music. But that didn’t stop me from singing along “oh oh oh I’m a doctor.” The last song “The Wa and the Wherefore” ends on a more melancholic, leaves changing note. Sentinels is an upbeat band with an international back story. The vocals may turn some people off but there’s definitely some good stuff here.

http://www.myspace.com/sentinelsjapan