In 2022, Phantom Excaliver lost its drummer and its bassist in the same year. What remained was a vocalist and a guitarist. The next summer, that band won the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle.
The Two
Kacchang sings. Matsu plays guitar and takes the second vocal. The band formed in Tokyo in 2011 under the name Phantom X and became Phantom Excaliver in 2013.
Two albums came in the first stretch: 鋼鉄の誓い in 2015 and 幻の聖剣 in 2017. The style sits where melodic death metal, power metal and metalcore meet. In an interview around the second album, Matsu described the aim as a band built on gratitude and emotion, delivered properly through music. That is an unusually earnest mission statement for a band with a sword in its name, and they mean it.
2023
After the departures, the two kept going. In April 2023 Phantom Excaliver won Metal Battle Japan. On 29 July the band played Big Ass Metal Fest in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. On 3 August 2023, at Wacken Open Air, it took first place in the Metal Battle final, against bands from about thirty countries.
It was the second Japanese win in a row. Sable Hills had taken the title the year before, the first Japanese band ever to do so.
After the Title
The win opened the European summer. In 2024 the band played Rock Imperium Festival in Spain and returned to Wacken. Drummer Yusaku and bassist Tomo-P became official members, and the third album, THE RISING KINGDOM, came out on 4 December 2024 on Marquee/Avalon. It was the first Phantom Excaliver album in seven years.
Why It Matters
Plenty of bands fold when half the lineup walks out. This one entered a competition. The two who stayed decided the name was still worth carrying, and a festival field in Germany agreed with them.
Start with THE RISING KINGDOM, then go back to 幻の聖剣.
