You don't usually hear Led Zeppelin and science fiction mentioned in the same breath. But for Taro Kohata, who plays guitar and synthesizer, and sings for rock band Avengers In Sci-Fi, the two go hand in hand.
"We made our album as if we were a robotic Led Zeppelin. That was one of the starting points for it," he says to me at the offices of Hip Land Music, his band's management company in Tokyo's Gaienmae neighborhood. "Hip-hop artists sample Led Zeppelin and Nirvana and make dance music, and I wanted to do something like that in a rock band."
He's referring to the science-fiction-loving band's fifth studio album, "Unknown Tokyo Blues," which was released last month from Victor Entertainment. It's another fine display of Kohata and his bandmates' — bass player Yoshihiko Inami, who also sings and plays synthesizer, and drummer Masanori Hasegawa — signature spacey dance rock, filled with disco beats, funky guitar riffs, synthesizers and futuristic effects. The second song on the record, "Citizen Song," begins with a familiar, charging drum beat and equally aggressive guitar riff that connoisseurs of classic rock will immediately recognize as a homage to the Zeppelin classic, "Immigrant Song."