“Uncanny Valley” is the 12th single in ゼラ (Zera)’s ever-growing discography, and follows the single “MISSA” that was released in September of 2024. Where “MISSA” was the final single for guitarist Aqui, who decided to step down due to continuous health problems in early January of this year, it’s also the first single for new guitarist KIRAN.
While initially promoted as a single featuring the three remaining members (these being vocalist 水翠 (Hisui), guitarist ミナギ (Minagi) and bassist 流 (Ryu)), the reveal of the full music video for “Uncanny Valley” about two weeks before the release of the CD also revealed KIRAN as the new lead guitarist for the group.
The single was officially released on February 26 2025, and much like it’s two predecessors before it, only comes in one version, namely a CD with three songs: “Among the Sleep”, “Uncanny Valley” and “A stray Sheep”.
You’ve probably noticed that the title track isn’t the first song on this release. And the reason for that can be found in the lyrics for the first two songs, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here, shall we?
Since this isn’t the first installment in our ‘Marionette Parade’ series I don’t want to go into too much detail about the band’s history, since that would just be me being my own echo. If you’d like to know more about the group and their work before this single, I’m going to point you to our articles about “Octavius” and “MISSA” instead.
With the formalities out of the way, are you ready for “Uncanny Valley”? Then let’s go!
Sleep, sleep, so that you don’t get scared
Our journey into this release starts with “Among the Sleep”, which you might expect to be an instrumental serving as an intro for the main song based on its position in the tracklist. But no, it’s actually a full song composed by guitarist ミナギ (Minagi), spanning nearly three and a half minutes in total.
While ゼラ (Zera) have made use of a digital influence in their music for a long time, this influence is so much more noticeable in this first track. Throughout its runtime you’ll hear these elements much more than normally, but this is also quite fitting for what we’re going to discuss a little later. The lyrics have been written by vocalist 水翠 (Hisui) (which I am pointing out because not all of the songs on this single have lyrics written by him, mind you), and feature that familiar eerie feeling where a normal situation is turned into something disturbing. All without covering the scene in obvious horror. And if there’s something 水翠 (Hisui) is good at, it’s playing the villain. A role he also takes in these lyrics, in which he describes the situation of a young child waking up in their bed at night, but highlights the murderous intent of the villain in the room without giving them a form. It’s all extremely subtle, but drips with the style ゼラ (Zera) is getting better at with every release.
The next track is actually the title track for this single: “Uncanny Valley”. Both the lyrics and music are contributed by 水翠 (Hisui), something I could already tell when I heard the song in full when the music video was released. There is just something about his vocals mixing with the instrumentals when he’s the sole contributor that immediately stands out to me.
Regardless, the digital influence doesn’t return as heavily in this second track than it did in the first, but the theme of ‘sleep’ and ‘dreams’ is pulled into these lyrics as well. Not as clearly as a scenario like we saw in the first song, but more as a metaphor, in the sense of us humans always dreaming about something better. The grass always being greener on the other side, so to speak.
With its fast tempo the song allows both KIRAN and ミナギ (Minagi) to take an obvious lead as the dominant instruments you’ll hear throughout the song, but 流 (Ryu)’s bass is always forming a very solid foundation for the other instruments to lean on, including the drums. Combine this with the different vocal sounds 水翠 (Hisui) can produce to put emphasis on certain parts of the lyrics, like “No matter what the means, the grass is always greener on the other side. The programming of transcendent ethics, the created Mother, the false Other, a sense of crisis, a sense of discomfort. No Pain No Gain, carrying out the murderous intent.” being sung in his lower vocal sound give these words an entirely different vibe. A stark contrast to his higher voice singing “The impulse of tragedy, the truth that pierces a ridiculous back. Karma, a doll playing the role of a human life.”, despite these two verses being directly after each other. The majority of the song is also sung in Japanese, with the exception of “A gentle reality is the beginning of fear, so let’s keep dreaming scary dreams”, “Mother” and “Other”, which is also quite the difference to the previous track, which had a long more English hidden in its lyrics.
I’ve mentioned the existence of this a few times already, so let’s actually talk about the music video as well. Since I already said that “Uncanny Valley” doesn’t have a scenario described in its lyrics you’re probably wondering what you can grab on to in order to create a music video. A very small element mentioned in these lyrics, actually. This does mean that you don’t need the music video to understand the ‘story’ being told within the lyrics, but it’s also not a ‘band performs song’-type of video we seem to have discussed in a few of the articles before this one. But, at the same time the music video really is it’s own entity, since ‘uncanny valley’ as a term is ‘a hypothesis in which it is predicted that certain stimuli feel more natural and trustworthy if they look more like humans than robots’. And this is exactly what the music video grabs onto with both hands.
The music video opens with a human-shaped robot being created, and we very quickly are shown the actual human look of this android (or humanoid, if you want) as she sits on the floor and opens her eyes. The actress playing the role of an artificial intelligence very well with both her movements and her eyes in particular, that listen to the human in front of her, but don’t have that element of human interaction in them.
While the human girl tries to teach her how to behave and how to have fun, there is that small fear a lot of people have for robots: what if they refuse to listen and start making rules of their own? Which is exactly what we see happen, the android changes the plan and chases the human girl through the woods into an (abandoned?) facility where she manages to short-circuit the android with an exposed wire, causing the android to remember the happy moments they had together before the song ends. Is she looking for revenge? Who knows, but the music video appears to be a flashback to how she got into the position we see at the start.
While not being a clear representation of the lyrics as a whole – something that wasn’t possible to begin with if you remember – it is one of the more interesting videos I’ve seen in a while. Simply because of it not being a simple ‘band performs song’-type of music video. It doesn’t show the theme of the single very well unless you know what to look for and read between the metaphorical lines, but it does grab on to the lyrics through the “a doll playing the role of a human life”-line. Plus, isn’t current society dreaming of AI becoming better and better?
The last track of the single is “A stray Sheep”, where the lyrics and the music are both contributed by bassist 流 (Ryu). The lyrics are as vague as it’s predecessor, and don’t portray a scene either. Just like “Uncanny Valley” these lyrics are probably best described as ‘a way of thinking’. And on both the writing style of the lyrics and the composition of the music, the title of the song is extremely well chosen. It is indeed a bit of a stray sheep compared to the other two tracks, with less digital influence than the other two and a more melodic vocal style with a dip to a more growling style for 水翠 (Hisui) here and there.
While the other two songs have more of a murderous intent hidden in them, “A stray Sheep” is more of the angry and depressed kind. “In this world of nightmares, everything I see seems empty. I can’t help it. Until my body decays and falls asleep, I can hear the horrible song. I hate everything I see.”
The majority of these lyrics are also in Japanese, which probably fits what 流 (Ryu) was trying to express better than English lyrics would have.
Conclusion
While not as clearly noticeable on every track, “Uncanny Valley” leans more into the digital aspect that ゼラ (Zera) has been using in their work for a while. But this isn’t a bad thing for them. Vocalist 水翠 (Hisui) seems very aware of his own vocal capabilities and manages to intertwine these with the instruments to create something unique for every track without being the main attraction every single time. While the combination of Aqui and ミナギ (Minagi) was extremely entertaining, the same can be said about ミナギ (Minagi) and KIRAN – who seems to be the perfect fit for ゼラ (Zera)’s music. As sometimes a new member can change the sound of a group entirely, but that doesn’t seem to be happening here, which is good news for fans of the group!
While once again the lyrics make it difficult to create a coherent story for the release (something we saw with “MISSA” as well, while “Octavius” didn’t seem to be limited by this problem at all), the theme of sleep and dreams shines through quite well when you actually see the lyrics. Even for 流 (Ryu)’s contribution “A stray Sheep” the influence is still there, albeit a little less obvious than the other two tracks.
I’ve said this at the end of the previous installments of Marionette Parade as well, but I’m already looking forward to what the group will come with next. Since it’s almost impossible to predict what they’ll be going for with a new release, and what journey that will take us on. Which is something I really enjoy from a group: being familiar yet unpredictable at the same time.
The single is available for streaming, but also as a physical CD. And of course we’ll provide you with the information for both below.
 PCM-326 // ¥1,650 |
02. Uncanny Valley 03. A stray Sheep |
2025.02.26 Shop: CDJapan |
More about ゼラ (Zera)
 (Zera)     |  (Hisui)  |  |  (Minagi) |  (Ryu) |
雪 (Yuki) is the owner and driving force behind Arlequin.
She originally started the project in 2009 as a photographer under the name of Arlequin Photography, but developed an interest in journalism and translation ever since. Because of these interests interviews and reviews were added to the project, until it eventually hit the limits as a "photographer" in 2021, and Arlequin Magazine was added to the mix.
雪 (Yuki) is a native Dutch speaker with a graphic design degree, which means she is also the main person behind Arlequin Creations.
After all these years, she's still the one responsible for the interviews and most of the live photography you see here at Arlequin, but the majority of reviews and behind-the-scenes work is also done by her.
The reviews she writes are from the viewing point of an overseas fan, and thus written in English before being translated to Dutch, Spanish and Japanese. In the English versions she also tries to explain the meaning behind certain kanji or song titles to the readers, but what you don't see here is that these explanations are omitted in the Japanese versions in order to appeal to these readers more.
She speaks Dutch and English on a native level, but also understands Japanese and German.