DADAROMA is, by all accounts available to me, one of the handful of bands from the new crop that have skyrocketed in stature and popularity to the levels previously held by the mid 2000’s indie stalwarts, crashing the party with probably the best case of intuitive visual kei marketing since conditional disbandment by first releasing Oboreru Sakana on Youtube for all gaijins to easily enjoy. Immediate hit in the west relatively speaking, due to its accessibility both in sound and availability, they’ve been on a continual upward surge since. And now two DADAism’s later, the third in the series has just dropped coinciding with the third year into their run.
Having now amassed a decent amount of bulk into their discography one can finally make some observations what DADAROMA is, and what they are about. What to note specifically, is that the overall image of their sound is uniquely scattered, and yet aesthetically consistent. Ever since their debut a polarity has been attributed to them; a struggle between the metalcore influence against their wacky, almost The GazettE-esque light-heartedness and a tendency to stick to more traditional nu-metal visual kei riffs and vocal stylings. At this point, three years on from their debut, it can probably be said that this is a false observation. Out of a discography of 47 or so songs, only about 4 or 5 put on their striped deathcore socks, while the rest tread the line of either appropriating the odd stylistic trick from the style or settle comfortably into the visual kei ballad/mid-tempo song territory. What does remain consistent however is their imagery of clowns, sex, clichéd visual kei political commentary and a very loud production that’s as slick as it gets. Looking at the entirety of their output from the past three years one notices that they’ve always been kind of the same; looking, sounding and acting pretty much like they’ve always done and whatever had been mistakenly attributed as a stylistic shift was merely a case of someone being unfamiliar with them. The palette of DADAROMA just happens to be very broad, and they happen to divulge in all the different aspects of it cyclically.
What I do think is true however, is that they do some things better than others, and DADAISM 3 is a prime example of it. In the third release of their EP series we see a band distilling all their worst traits into 20-minute slog that’s everything I hope this band will not be about in the future.
In their prime DADAROMA uses the interplay of their ability to use metalcore and traditional visual kei’s melodramatic potency to a great effect. In their first PV tracks Oboreru Sakana and Ame no Waltz they bang out a Suicide Silence 101 knock-off and whispery vk vocals at exactly the right times, and climax like the sinking titanic with a lazy vk fade out for the centuries. If perfect 2010’s visual kei was engineered in a laboratory, it’d sound like these two songs did. Fucking tremendous.
While for some of the subsequent PV’s they’d showcase their knack for doing other things, I believe that even if they didn’t continue chugging like before, at least they always stayed fun and sexy. When in form, Yoshiatsu gives a degree of gravity to everything he is on and there is no denying what a technically able band there’s behind him; so even when appropriating INSIDE BEAST or being really tacky with Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burtony jingles, they’re awesome. With DADAISM 3 being something which they haven’t been before: boring.
Oddly enough starting out with a high note, DADAROMA’s PV cut this time is MASTURBATION that horrified a segment of the people on this board, and here I’ll make a case for it: MASTURBATION is interesting, loud and very obnoxious. One valuable life lesson I’ve learned from a childhood of watching pro-wrestling is that any reaction is better than no reaction. There’s an inherent value to the over the topness, and especially when it’s quite fitting for a band that’s always been kind of carney, and most importantly sincerely self-aware. Could I do without another mid-period Marilyn Manson dance live song? Yes, but I don’t hate it either and I kind of appreciate it for what it is. Despite everything it still bangs hard and remains true to the band’s spirit.
Things halt to a standstill right afterwards however, when DADAROMA apparently decides to churn out a EP’s worth of mid-tempo ballads and nu-nu-visual kei bangers, channelling pop Lynch and the worm-eaten corpse of that version of Girugamesh nobody liked. I’m making it sound worse than it is, but for a band that’s been so consistent a lull like this is both alarming and a curious choice. Before in songs like Yume Tarareba and Zouka what worked in their favour is both their colourful concept and the contrast in the sound of all their elements. Things that were generic were made cool by their skill and unique character. When a band like this then slows down and makes a collection of energetic live songs and heartfelt bittersweet ballads, I become disaffected when they fall short of the grand theatre of what they could be. Romance Gray is immediately forgettable compared to other songs structured the same way with the sampled rainfall and everything; Itoshi teru doesn’t hold a candle to the songs they’ve made before in a similar style either, and in fact every other song on here can as well be categorised into “they’ve done it before, and they’ve done it better.” Sincerely it is the first time this band has done something twice, and now it’s an EP full of very matter of fact diddies that lack the edge of their prior material, aside from the PV cut that’s a Risley Circus B-side with crass lyrics as its saving grace.
When this band takes its foot off the pedal, they can start sounding very generic and tired. This can be circumvented by doing things different. Working with your unique concept, not ripping off Lynch and utilising the tools at your disposal in ways that hasn't been done in the scene before. DADAISM 3 is a paint by the numbers EP from a very professional band no matter how you look at it; it doesn’t hit even close to as hard as 1 or have the diversity of 2. If they’ll settle on treading the same ground like a DOGMA Gazette junior, then they’ll absolutely have to bring back the deathcore for some desperately needed flavour, or otherwise we are due for redux of NOW and GO era Girugamesh. If the history of this band is anything to go by then they'll rebound shortly, but there's always that doubt...
LOL not in the conventional sense but the way they debuted with a sold out oneman and no prior releases was bc of tanuki slicktalking and promising girls things to sell the tickets (alleged!!!!)
MORRIGAN's sound is softening overall and it's not a bad thing, at first It seemed for a while like each release of theirs was only good for that one headbanger that sounds like an updated version of the banger from the last release.. now of course they are building that body of work with some emotional draw and I love it because I weirdly stanleyed XIBALBA in highschool...
Tranq, ASPIRIN and 顔ノ亡ヰ聖母 were all pretty good from the album, but damn SUPERSTAR is beastly I love both sections of it.<3
Uhm so was "XISS" always supposed to be saying "Kiss" ?? Haha wow well that's something I finally understand, weird to sub the X in for the K instead of the vowel in the middle as in "KXSS"
I thought they were saying it like KRAD's mini album "XisDead" = "'x' is dead" = EXISTED"
^ low key the last meaning didn't hit me until my dad said it... he was lucky enough to see it at Tower and he's like oh that's clever. I'm like yeah I knew that... I'm clever like you guys right?
First heard Rentrer en Soi's single for "Wither" in either late 2004 or early 2005, and fell in love. Funnily enough, I had no idea what Visual Kei was and hadn't even seen a picture of the band at the time. The title track is still one of my favorite VK songs ever.
1) They were getting several thousand views an hour with NO exposure on foreign websites, and zero-to-none exposure on Japanese social media.
2) As such, they got to 116k within 4 days, and the very first day they had at best 4k. There was a time period when they got around 20k within 3 (!!!) Hours. I dare you to find me anything on any social media that would bring them so much natural trafic.
3) After that, they gained 1.5k during 7 days-ish. Assuming that they naturally got 120k views within 4 days, it's impossible to have such a drastic fall in views.
4) Also, they had a very unnatural ratio of likes-to-views until they reached 100k - it was around 300-400 likes. Again, it's impossible to have such a small number of likes when you have natural trafic, unless you somehow get exposed to an audience that just doesn't care about your music to such a degree, that they don't even give you a dislike.
5) They are playing in such a niche genre, especially for visual kei, that they can't have that many fans even if you take all the bangyas and mitsus from D.I.D., Deviloof and Airish (which they have not that many of).
So we can conclude that they bought the views - unnatural trafic, strange likes-to-views ratio, drastic fall of views, the fact that they don't have that many fans, the fact that they had almost zero exposure on the social media.
LOL my thoughts exactly wasn't his former Band more "soft" and all? tbh I already like him waay more in CHOKE lol RUVISH was okay but I could never fully get into them, this is better! gonna keep an eye on them
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