beni

Easily one of the best visual kei releases of the year in my opinion and I think it deserves some kind of review.
 

 
1: 失い(Ushinai) -
 
A very solid opening song! Honestly very solid all the way throughout. - 8.5/10
 
2: I'M SHIT NOODLE ,BUT... 
 
I'M SHIT NOODLE , BUT... I'm not a bad song! I kind of expected a heavier filler track and that's pretty much what we got here. A pretty damn good filler track at that. Main riff kind of reminds me of VanessA's " -散歌-retrospection". - 8/10
 
3: ETERNAL SLEEP
 
Probably one of the best ballad type songs I've heard jin sing since nega's "reminiscence". - 9/10

~DAT HIP HOP THREAD~







I figured we needed a place here to discuss hip hop, so I've made this theread! So who else here likes hip hop and what artists are you currently into?











Personally, I'm really diggin the strange music label...so much talent (Tech N9ne, Krizz Kailko, ¡Mayday!, and Ces Cru are my favs there). Ces Cru's new album just dropped today and it's pretty damn dope. The track below is killer!







Also, one of my partners recently put me on to Marcus D. Pretty dope beat-maker/producer heavily infuenced by Nujabes!





So yeah, how else here is into hip hop? What are yall listening to?

Do you prefer male or female vocals in Japanese music?
 
To submit a poll for the MH POLL OF THE WEEK, P.M. @CAT5 with your poll question, choices, and state whether it's multiple choice or not.

My first ever J-indie band I found. Will always be a group I'll remember and go back and forth to. 

1000/10 <3

Well if anyone wants to pop in plug at 6:30 UTC(an hour and a half before the usual plug time) I'll (finally) be spinning a live DVD that we can chill and watch :v

This is my first review here, so please be kind XD I guess it also doesn’t hurt to confess at the outset that I’m writing from the perspective of an unabashedly passionate vistlip fan. So… fair warning for people looking for unbiased reviews.

I’ve been looping LAYOUT since its release and I think I’ve soaked in it enough to form a fairly stable opinion of it (around 30 repetitions). While I haven’t had the time to go around canvassing opinions from my friends, at this point I can say that I definitely like it more than CHRONUS, and maybe a little less than THEATER, which remains my favorite vistlip album (if only because that's their very first album, and it's special for the fact that there can always only be one "first" time). I still can't decide if I like ORDER MADE or LAYOUT more! But overall, LAYOUT is an extremely satisfying album. I apologize for not doing a track-by-track review; I’m terrible at that as I prefer to focus on the "emergent" qualities of the album instead of the nitty-gritty details. Maybe someone else will review the individual tracks below.

Structurally, the album’s track placement is impeccable. REM SLEEP, released previously as their promotional PV, wastes no time in pulling the listener immediately into the classic vistlip soundscape. For me this track operates as a prelude to the trio of songs constituting the nexus of the entire album (Idea - World is mine. - By the rain.) which consolidates the signature sound that will continue to reverberate through the rest of the album. Flanked by My second B-day. / Catastrophe on one side and ROACH / Good girl gone bed. on the other, the soft and seductive core of the album is shielded by these harder, more intense tracks (reminiscent of vistlip releases like GLOSTER) that textures the overall experience as one pulls away from the mellow central portion. Period and Jack (title tracks of their last 2 singles) have been deployed by the band as the album’s 2nd and 2nd last tracks, allowing the listener to begin and end the album on a comfortably familiar note without either track being unnecessarily obtrusive to the extent that they steal the show from the new songs. Finally, LAYOUT (the track) is the proverbial icing on the cake that provides a nice denouement and closure to the album.

It's a simple but elegant setup (I’m almost tempted to say 'layout' XD); because the mistake a lot of potentially good albums make is a lack of organization, as a result of which an album that boasts many interesting ideas ends up meandering nowhere in particular and fizzling out because you simply can't tell where it's leading you. With LAYOUT, the division of labor between the tracks is clear and everything fits perfectly into an integrated whole anchored by a strong conceptual scaffolding. It's nothing too complicated, but sometimes less is more. So while it isn't exactly a roller-coast ride of an album with its share of surprises and shocks, there's scarcely any place for the superfluous.

Tohya composed most of the songs in this album, except 4 songs which were written by Yuh. Track-wise, my favorite songs off the album are Idea, REM SLEEP, World is mine., By the rain. (roughly in descending order). I'm a sucker for pop-rock with a nice beat and groove, performative vocals, and evocative lyrics. Idea is sooo pretty I need to reserve special praise for it. An energetic song driven by its robust chorus (ohh I swear vistlip kills the vi-IV-I-V progression) and Tomo's hypnotic vocals sweeping effortlessly across the mid-high range, Idea belongs in the same category as vistlip songs like CHIMERA, inc., PERFECT CRIME, insofar as they all have the characteristic bittersweet sound which never fails to gives me goosebumps ._. I can't exactly describe it: these songs are upbeat, forward-looking, yet tinged ever so subtly by a shade of 重み [idk how to translate this word.. “heaviness”?] beneath the surface. Consequently the attentive listener gets a lingering sense of something more going on – an undertow, perhaps, that does just enough to keep the album from meekly collapsing into an unrestrained celebration of optimism.

(A digression: some time ago I saw someone asking a new band on Twitter whether their sound would be 明るい (“bright”) or 暗い (“dark”), and then I realize that’s such a painfully reductive way of conceptualizing a band’s sound, because any band worth their salt would surely have enough facets in their music to transcend that simple dichotomy.)

Finally:

I'm just really excited that vistlip always strives to break new ground, but keeps enough of what makes them unmistakably vistlip. It’s a tough balance to be had. Among bands who've managed to last more than 5 years some try too hard to expand their sound where, at some point, fans can't help but pause and question if this is the band that they used to like; and then there are others who go on surreptitiously recycling their old materials until fans are bored and eventually put off. Thankfully, with vistlip this hasn’t happened, and I’m quietly confident neither of these scenarios will happen as the band soldiers on towards their 10th anniversary.

I didn't intend to give a rating, but if I have to it'll be around 8.5-9 out of 10. I’m sure my review could have been better, although if it actually manages to pique the interest of casual vistlip listeners or people who haven’t tried vistlip then I’ve succeeded in what I'd set out to do

Now let’s hear what others have to say about this! What do you like / not like about LAYOUT?

Maiko = A variation of Mike

Mizu = Water which is tied in with the Astrology sign, Cancer: June 25 (my birthday).

Be careful of making a thread which has already been made! Thanks @CAT5

THE JAPANESE INDIE THREAD

Since the J-indie fanbase seems rather small on this forum, I've created this thread in an effort to consolidate discussion - as opposed to making a billion different threads for every J-indie artist/band.
Of course, this thread is for discussion of non-VK bands/artist - though we don't necessarily have to limit ourselves to rock and rock oriented genres.
So besides myself and Aion, who else here is a die-hard J-indies fan? If you consider yourself a fan, you can start by discussing a few of your favorite J-indie bands, how you got into J-indie, or what you're looking forward to this year. Whatever you'd like to discuss.
Anything J-indie goes!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for me....WOW! Where do I begin? I guess one of my recent favorite bands would be Haisuinonasa (??イスイノナサ). I was first introduced to them back in early 2009 thanks to a mix that my pal Steve Tanaka (organizer of the Next Music from TOKYO tour) put together. It was pretty much love at first listen, as Haisuinonasa combines so many of the elements that I enjoy in music - female vocals, mathy instrumentation, ethereal/dreamy atmospheres. Wasn't much of a surprise that they were signed to Zankyo.
Here's one of my favorite tracks from their first EP:
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There's a plethora of other fairly new bands that have caught my ear, but for me, haisuinonasa remains one of my favorite young indie bands to emerge from the scene.
Switching gears a bit, I'm really looking forward to OWARIKARA's upcoming album. It'll be released in a few days and judging from their new PV, "Swing", they haven't fallen into a sophomore slump at all! ;D
bwT30DWZIm8
As for disappointments for 2011 so far:
I thought the new Lillies and Remains album was a bit underwhelming. It wasn't bad, but the album got pretty boring for me after the first few tracks. However, I adored the opening track "Across the Line"
The new Merpeoples was also pretty lackluster. As with Lillies and Remains, the new album "metropolis" wasn't "bad", I just thought it paled in comparison to their debut.
Listening to "Shaman" from their first mini album
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and this song from their new album:
You can kinda hear the difference in their sound...
At any rate, I'm looking forward to hearing what else this year has to offer.
Anyways, enough of my rambling. Where are the other J-indies fans at!!!???

THE JAPANESE POP A.K.A. J-POP THREAD
(bless this post, Cat/Zess/Nos/etc.-sama, onegaishimasu~)
 
 
 
Are you a hardcore SMAPer? Or perhaps a bit of JUMPer? Arashist? Cieler...?
 
Okay, fan nicks aside - and as you might already guess from these "absurd" names, this is basically J-POP we are speaking of!
 
This thread is basically about anything you could easily drop under this subject - i.e non-vk bands/acts/artists that get usual, mainstream exposure inside and outside of Japan and so on...
 
To blatantly "quote" Cat's words in his J-INDIE THREAD (which I highly rec), besides myself, Zombie, most of the mod staff, admins...who else here is more of a "vk-free Japanese pop" person? You can start by discussing anything about your favorite J-pop acts, be it even some cutesy-patootiesy acts such KPP, Yanakiku, AKB48, Babymetal (I think they are j-pop...ish?) - or you might as well go passionate and talk about even more "serious" music in the vein of Hilchryme, Charisma.com, m-flo and etc. etc. etc.
 
Talk about your 2015 expectations for J-pop, fav classics, stuff you really hate...nah, just anything JAYPAWP goes in here, lol.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
As for me...
 
- New Kyary single was quite okay - not so sure about classifying any replay value for A-side + B-side 1 (KISEKAE) but B-side (My Room) oozes some sugarsweet nostalgia - sometimes it's good to see Nakata without his Guetta anthems
 
- YANAKIKU unfortunately deserves their place as another "promo once, then pass away"-kind of a group like FEMM did a few months/half a year ago...cool ideas, not-so-cool performance.
 
...
 
Guess that's all from my part for now, what about you guys?

I achieved getting a friend into something Japanese for the first time ever after introducing him to a few. The only one he got into? ...AKB48.
Good enough.

Soooooo many similar favourite bands, holy plums. And hey, if you take a look to the left, looky at my current avatar... x'D Yay!~
LM.C, Lycaon, Mejibray, Dog in the POW; hell... to the YES, my friend. : 3
Awesome of you to join and approach us with this great introduction post. :'3 I do hope you enjoy your time here with us! I remember being the same with my first post but you'll feel right at home here soon, I'm sure. Please do join us in the chat whenever you'd like, and also, if you're free on Sundays or any evenings (depending on what your timezone is), we have plug sessions going on (I can expand on this if you'd confused, of course). I hope to see you around as much as I'm already seeing which is really lovely. Also, recommending Last.fm too, a lot of us are on it! ^-^

Hello me.
This is so depressing to me because I actually need more clothes but the only money I get I keep putting onto game releases. ='D I'm just complaining about my own money spending here without thinking. xD

the only thing im good at is spending money on is games...

Happy birthday to our birds!
 
-Black_Bird- (23)
-Black:Bird-

So, I joined this site with only the intention of downloading music. Then, I realized it looked like a pretty cool place... so I figured I could hang around. *shrug* It's always nice to become a member of new forums.
 
Anyway, about me... well, obviously I love visual kei. I'm a total addict when it comes to that sort of thing. I'll list my favorite bands later since I want to get to the point of telling more about than just visual kei even though it pretty much takes my entire daily life lol. Moving on, um... well... I'm on the autistic spectrum. Not severely, mind you. It mostly affects my emotional state and social skills though. However, once you get to know me, you'll be wishing I had a mute button.
 
I'm a writer, so that's a plus, I guess? I like to write stories, but I've only written like two. heh... um oh! There's one important thing I should say. As you can tell from my username, Takeru is my hero. Being someone who suffers from almost disabling anxiety, it just helps to have someone go through so much crap and still be as strong as ever through it all. I heard that he said in his blog that he has depersonalization disorder, panic attacks, arrhythmia and autonomic ataxia... yet look at him. So amazing... so... so happy. That inspires me to overcome my anxiety and other things. I mean, this guy is so awesome because he owns his owns and designs his own clothing line, is the vocalist for SuG... he's just amazing to me. Enough about him though. >/////<
 
I can be really shy and timid at first. It'll take me a while to get used to my surroundings here... so don't be surprised if I come off as awkward or well... not right I guess lol. I really am a great person as far as I know too, so don't be afraid to approach me!
 
I'm not sure how updated this list really is but... sicne visual kei, as I said, takes up a majority of my life... I might as well share my favorite bands and stuff, right?
 


 
So yeah. I told you it was a very huge list. I did bold the ones I'm more favorable towards though. Just to give you an idea of what I enjoy most of all. Just keep in mind that I love ALL these bands equally, except for SuG because I love them more. <3
 
If you want to know more about me, don't be afraid to ask. ^w^ I don't bite unless it's Monday, then I bite.

1. MERRY 64
2. The GazettE 49
3. Deadman 41
4. DIR EN GREY 33
5. D'espairsRay 26
 
I sure love the D

No, no, don't stop there! You've got the momentum, he is at his most vulnerable now, so take advantage of that and show him more, more, MORE.

chapped lips FTW

I have a rather weird love and interest in anything containing horns because of its symbolism and tie into what it's in, so I wanted to give this a watch for a while but I always kept forgetting. So thanks for the reminded and for the lil review. I still want to check it out just because of the horns but the fact that the acting you said is bad and it's starring Radcliffe I can't be surprised at lol. 'The Woman In Black' is so bad just because it's him acting to me aha. Anyway, I expected it like the trailers too so I guess I'm going in this like I'll be doing with 'Tusk.' Dat movie, LOL.
 
 
I ADORE this movie! I must check out all the Chan movies you've watched and spoken of, he's so important, I need more. X'D

Horns (2014): I was really excited to see this since the trailers made it look like a dark, sarcastic comedy, but really it was so much fluff and bad acting that by the end I didn't even care what happened to the lead characters. The make-up and sets where nice, but Daniel Radcliffe didn't impress me and I wouldn't look into him as the lead in another comedy again any time soon. I would like to read the book this film was based on because the premise actually seems interesting, but I wanted less sugar-coated, horrible, generation Twilight supernatural love story and more horror-comedy. Felt like a total bait-and-switch. :/

New Police Story - Jackie Chan is back, but this film has nothing to do with the four first films of the series. Instead it's somewhat a reboot. It's not as light as the two firt and not as James Bond-esque as the two others. It's more focused on drama, which works well enough. However, I am not too fond of the trendy villains and the sidekick as I think they comes off as a bit forced. I like the concept, but the execution could've been much better. Could've done with much less English as well, because that is a part I find annoying as fuck in this film. On par with First Strike and a very entertaining film, but not close to the three first.
 

 
Project A - A fantastic martial arts comedy featuring three of the Seven Little Fortunes, Jackie CHan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Fantastic film with amazing martial arts scenes, pirates, a good plot and everything. The slapstick humour works so well here, and the scenes in and outside the clocktower is top fuckong notch. Brilliant!

I'm not even sure if this band could pull off any other sounds besides this one and honestly I don't want them to. I listened to Hanafugetsu and found it super boring, despite there being almost 95% similarity between the two bands. That 5% difference between Wagakki and Hanafugetsu is the reason why everyone knows about the former but not the latter, and it's what caused them to blow up in the first place. They have a lot of freedom to play around with but ultimately they've committed themselves to this theme of theirs and are confined by it until they decide to re-define it later. And if they're going to re-define themselves they need to be very, very careful not to mess up.
Plenty of good one-dimensional bands from Bathory to -OZ- have tried to reinvent themselves and failed. Both were really good at what they did (black metal and metalcore respectively) before they tried to change it up. Bathory's thrash era is bad. Everything post-ROUGE for -OZ- was...not as good as VERSUS. Neither really needed to change anything about their sound but chose to anyway and were arguably worse off for it. I see no reason why this band needs to change anything just yet. Now eventually, they will need to switch it up and find new ways to expand their music and keep it interesting. That kind of balancing act is what separates the good artists from the great. But there's enough within their limited theme to enable them to continue for the next five years easily before it starts getting stale.

Hpbd CAT5