State Craft stopped in 2001. The people in it did not, and neither did the songs.

The Members

After the band ended, its members turned up in three others: God’s Heritage, Deacon, and Loyal to the Grave.

The third is the important one. Loyal to the Grave had begun in the summer of 1998 as a State Craft side project. Both of State Craft’s guitarists, Hiroyuki Shinohara and Hiroyuki Kohama, are in it. So when the older band ended, its guitar team simply carried on under another name, and has been doing so ever since.

The Slayer Singles

There is a neat piece of evidence for the connection, pressed on vinyl.

From 1999 the American label Devil’s Head Records ran a series of split seven-inch singles called When Angels Shed Their Wings. Each one paired two bands, and every song was a Slayer cover.

Volume one, in 1999, was Aftershock and State Craft. Aftershock’s guitarist, Adam Dutkiewicz, went on to found Killswitch Engage.

Volume three, in 2003, was The Acacia Strain and Loyal to the Grave.

Two bands from the same family, on the same series, four years apart. And the link with The Acacia Strain lasted: that band’s singer appears as a guest on Loyal to the Grave’s 2012 album, Against the Odds.

The Songs

State Craft’s songs have gone on being played by other people.

In May 2024 a band called Gates of Hopeless performed “Into The Snowlight Gate,” from the album, at a show in Tokyo. Two guests joined them on stage: Ohnuki, State Craft’s singer, and Hiro, one of its guitarists.

The reach goes beyond Japan. A band from Thailand, Whisper, has recorded a cover of “Unity and Fight,” the title song of State Craft’s first demo from 1995.

The Style

Writers have also traced the sound forward. The melodic, metallic approach State Craft took has been heard in later Japanese bands, and one retrospective describes the group as a forerunner of the melodic metalcore that spread through the 2000s.

Why It Matters

Most bands that last six years leave a few records and a memory. State Craft left a second band that is still active, a place in an American label’s history, and a singer who could walk on stage in 2024 and sing the old song again.

Start with the album. Then follow the guitarists into Loyal to the Grave.