Doesn't the album cover already look interesting?

I am going to Bonnaroo in June this year, and ever since I have bought my ticket I have been edging more and more back into instrumentally-driven music and all sorts of rock (which is my roots in music anyway). I had an old Toe EP lying around, and after listening to it and searching for more songs online I discovered LITE. Both bands are from Japan, and are (mostly) instrumental bands that utilize the mastery of their instruments to create a highly entertaining and listenable style of music. A standard for good instrumental bands is that they have a strength in voicing and phrasing within their music, and these two bands are no exception. The drummer of Toe, Takashi Kashikura, is a master of his instrument, providing insane rhythms and rapid time signature changes throughout the songs to keep the listener guessing. LITE is more guitar driven, with their dual distorted/clean guitar attack guiding the direction of the music through their intense jams. Both have an amazing ability to be either relaxing or incredibly upbeat and fascinating, depending on the mood of the listener and what they choose to focus on. To the genre purists, LITE and Toe are “technically” categorized as post-rock or math-rock (due to the complex time signature changes and overlapping/intertwining lead instruments). But all categorization aside, I think both of these bands offer something that many different kinds of people will enjoy. I was playing these guys all day, and my roommate (who is primarily a EDM fan) commented something along the lines of, “dude…this is awesome.” Both are definitely worth checking out- they are fascinating to jam to and PERFECT for road trips, as well as studying.

LITE-Human Gift (Cmon just click play…) 

Toe- New Sentimentality