There are at least 5 artists by this name: 1. Shiro is R&B singer Shiro Stokes. 2. Shiro is a Japanese female singer , produced by the former X-Japan Founder/Keyboardist/Drummer/producer Yoshiki. 3. Shiro is a five-piece technical metal band based in the City of Derry, Northern Ireland, and the mini-album ‘Shiro’ is their debut release. Their up-beat, subtly complex take on metal fleetingly brings to mind Deftones, A Perfect Circle, Sikth and Nine Inch Nails. This four-track CD is intended to give an insight into what Shiro has to contribute to the metal/heavy rock genre. These four tracks encompass a large variety of influences, ranging from the more obvious aforementioned bands via ambient style electronica, modern minimalist music through to virtuosic musicians. Forming in December 2006, Shiro played their first shows in Northern Ireland’s first and second cities. Since the turn of the year Shiro have been busy writing and recording their debut CD and are continuing to write for a future album which they hope to release within the year. Members of Shiro have much experience in other band ventures. Guitarist Ricky Graham is also an international touring, recording artist, and music producer. Mapex & Aquarian Endorsee Jay Dickson has been in two of N. Ireland’s more successful recent bands (Mascara Story and Rescue the Astronauts) playing such venues as Nottingham Rock City, London Carling Islington Acadamy and Download Festival. Guitarist Michael Ahern is also a founding member of Countervela who have toured Ireland and the UK extensively. Vocalist Emmet Colton is also in the successful post-hardcore band Real Friends Break Chairs. Stephen McCauley - BBC Northern Ireland: "They take the conventions of metal, pull them apart, dust them down, and put them back in the wrong place and in doing so they craft deftly intricate and sonically challenging music." AU Magazine Review: "Shiro are a pretty enticing prospect. Comprising members (and ex-members) of bands such as Rescue The Astronauts and Real Friends Break Chairs the Derry five-piece are something of a side-project/supergroup. Offering up a salacious feast of metal-tinged hardcore they come off as a more spacey Glassjaw (with added technical leanings) or a funk-stripped Incubus but with more punch. Generally, it's an impressive and promising introduction to a young band ticking all the right boxes. If bands like Fightstar can carve a niche from this kind of thing with only half as many ideas, there's gotta be a good fortune for this lot." Metal Ireland Review: "The groundswell of talent that is Derry right now brings us Shiro and their implausibly accomplished self-titled debut EP.Though a fully functioning band, perhaps more so than Ricky Graham’s other outlets past and current, it is the guitarist’s identifiable-approaching-virtuoso stamp you will hear across four tracks. Anyone familiar with Graham’s internationally acclaimed solo material, his work under the Symbiotick guise or his classical workouts with Countervela’s Michael Ahern (also present here) will forgive themselves for being surprised at Shiro’s direction though, a kind of proto prog/post-hardcore recipe that in time may provide the basis of an auspicious sound. The post-hardcore aspect is most evident in certain well-executed tonal shifts; moods become downcast and reflective, and vocally, Emmet Colton similarly resembles Thursday’s Geoff Rickley and Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw. There is a more observable technical inspiration however, ‘Where are the People?’ reminds of Sikth, signature changes and frantic drum patterns interspersed with a hard-wearing groove, where wayward guitar licks liberally endorse ‘Wait to be Numbered’ before the lush Tool-like mid-section and ending take a hold. It’s on Refraction, though, that these characteristics are pushed to the fore. A rhythmic Meshuggah churn takes second-seed to an outburst of solos." 4. Justin Shiro, also known by the shorthand "SHIRO", is a SoundCloud lofi artist. 5. Shiro is a Swedish rapper from Gothenburg.