Rides In ReVellion new maxi single "Eternal〜渇望の空(katsubou no sora)〜" will be released at their presents live "ETERNAL-voiceless screaming-" at Shinsaibashi soma at 2016/01/22 (1,200yen)
[track list] 01.Eternal〜渇望の空(katsubou no sora)〜 02.Close.
I am not too saddened, strangely enough (probably because I saw this coming two years ago already). They have no place in today's heavier form of the Visual Kei scene, even I know this while they are my favourite band and I can sincerely say that this is the best possible option if they don't want to completely burn themselves out. They aren't heavy, they have all passed the age of thirty, and they've all been dabbling in the indies scene for far too long and were always somewhat stuck in place and couldn't advance because constant change held them back. It was quite clear earlier that their hiatus spawned from a lack of interest in the band due to the scene's changing environment, one that calls out to both younger musicians and younger fans. Less and less people apparently attended their lives and their popularity sunk desperately after Riku left, sales were awful, and I believe they'd only receive their funds from local musicians, friends and family seeing as you'd never actually hear anyone else about their music. Kisaki has been pressed on negatively for too long and it seriously damaged his reputation in the sense of former fans no longer enjoying him and his music.
I had a great run with them after I discovered their music through Youtube several years ago, I believe my first experience was with As If Forever Exists., and this still remains one of my favourite songs and music videos. I can't believe how much merchandise I've collected by them, and it's still expanding as occasionally I find something I either wasn't aware of yet, or simply hadn't been able to find before. They're calming, atmospheric, magical and simply beautiful in a way that I can't find in a lot of other bands.
I will continue to follow them, no matter their directions. Kisaki is primarily my main interest in music and I'll support him in every case. I know his patterns and that means he'll be back with something next year, frankly I am not too worried about that.
"bride now recruiting" I LOLed at this pathetic bullshit IRL, but this is kinda sad, actually.
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen a person come up with, and I've seen many fucked up stuff... Why are jap musicians so full of shit ? Ugh...
So he's planning to retire based on something he doesn't even have ? WTF ? Just pick up a fan or whatevs. What a lame person, holy shit.
A diamond in the rough that brings together all the qualities we love about 90's visual-kei.
Every age of music has a few standout acts, and the visual-kei scene is absolutely no exception. When looking at somewhat official sources of information on the subject (think Wikipedia or something of that nature), you’re almost guaranteed to find a few notable examples of acts that have irrefutably left their mark: X, Luna Sea, Kuroyume, Shazna, Malice Mizer, Penicillin, Color, Glay—the list could go on and on. However, there are also other examples of lesser-known names who were equally as enjoyable, but may did not have achieved the same amount of financial success as the greats. While the phrase “fringe acts are fringe for a reason” holds quite a bit of merit, intrinsic artistic value cannot always been measured by number of CDs sold. To me, Cynthia is a prime example of a hidden gem that goes unremembered except by a very small few. As an official reviewer, I feel that part of my duties is to preserve their memory and ensure that such a great band does not get lost in the sands of time.
On the surface, Cynthia were a fairly typical late 90’s visual band; band—gaudy outfits that were probably hand-made, long, flowing hair in a variety of unnatural colors, and heavy handed makeup. This was a time in visual-kei in which the scene was transitioning into its third era — softer, melodic bands were quite common and successful, but a new wave of darker and more flamboyant bands were was beginning to arise on popular labels like Matina and Key Party - where visual-kei started to branch out and really experiment with costumes as a result of bands like Malice Mizer and Lareine, and seek different forms of music that weren’t necessarily trying to be Kuroyume or Luna Sea. In this ecosystem, Cynthia was formed and produced quite colorful music that unfortunately has fallen to the wayside. Before their demise, the band released a collection album called Memories of Cynthia that contains the vast majority of their output in one location. While collection albums today are somewhat redundant, as most material is very easy to come be either digitally or in a store, the songs here are guaranteed to be better quality than their original tape forms and it seems like some of them have also been rerecorded too.
Having only tried them relatively recently, what drew me to Cynthia was their ability to take the popular melodic rock, mix it with some metallic influences, and add in symphonic orchestration. While most of the instrumental aspects to their music were undeniably artificial, such as canned background pipe organ and choirs a la Malice Mizer, the way in which they were used really caught my attention. Take for example, their song “in solitude.” This song makes fantastic use of melancholic vocal melodies and clever guitar work that is perfectly accented by both background pipe organ runs, ominous choir harmonies, and super dramatic tension and resolutions in their melodic progression of the whole song. This was the first track I had ever heard by Cynthia and was immediately hooked — the way that it is structured was so much better than a generic late 90’s song, coupled with their well placed guitar arpeggios that transition so well from section to section, made me know that this wasn’t just another faceless band (don’t get me wrong—no-name bands are my bread and butter) who was just cashing in on the eins zwei dreis of the time. While this song does have technical flaws in its composition and delivery, it makes up for them in its passion and capacity to really drive home a feeling of solitude, even if it is behind a thick veil of ridiculous campiness that I’ve grown to love.
From hearing this album numerous times, what draws me to Cynthia is exactly that—a solid sense of musicianship that isn’t afraid to not take itself so seriously. This band is prone to delivering bombastic guitar solos, super cheesy (in a loving way!) symphonic elements, and vocals that glue it all together with its raw charm that I can only seem to find in visual-kei. A perfect example of what I mean is track 9 – “Breathless Tears.” This song is a conglomeration of everything I love about the scene and all of its hallmarks: acoustic support guitar, ultra melodic bridges, English that isn’t quite audible, arpeggios accented by a completely artificial chorus, and a killer guitar solo to show that they can still play even if they did up the cheesiness to level 10. The ritardando (slight slowing down of tempo) towards the end of the song before the last rehash of the chorus also really drives the song home for me, as does the clearly classically-inspired ending phrase that surprisingly ends in a major key. Whoever their main composer was clearly did their homework and drew influence from more sources than just “Hall of the Mountain King.”
While I regrettably do not know too much of Cynthia’s history and their relation to other ~friend bands~, it was pretty interesting to hear that they often used guest vocalists to cameo on a few songs. While I do not recognize most of them, it’s a super call effect that I wish happened more often (Versailles’ “Princess” that used Kaya, allegedly, doesn’t really count). For example, in the industrial-influenced “Manipulate,” the core lyric during the chorus is “Crazy for you!” blurted out in between each line. Towards the end of the song you are able to hear several special guests chime in. While this song is fun in its own right for its very mechanically sounding guitar work and relentlessly obsessive melodic structure, the addition of random people really makes the song so much cooler.
Special guests are featured again in another track on Memory of Cynthia, entitled “Rain~Rain by the name of Desperation~.” While this song is much faster paced and more organic sounding than the previous example, cameos are made towards the end in a similar you-each-get-one-line between phrases in the chorus fashion. In spite of its ridiculous name, “Rain” is probably my second favorite song by Cynthia. It’s super pretty, yet spunky, and with a name like that you can expect the most music-video-full-of-face-touchingly-fun melodramatic cheese possible (side note: I’m both bewildered and happy that I’m sure people will know exactly what I mean by that). If a random reggae breakdown doesn’t peak your interest, then I’m sure the barrage of vocalist exchanges will. I do not think that they used the same special guests in this song they did in “Manipulate,” but then again I can only recognize one because he has an incredibly distinctive voice, and that is Yayoi (of Vice Risk / Deadly Sanctuary / Angel+Dust, etc and current owner of Rockstar Records). Fair warning: towards the end of this song, the very last sung part is a very big “for mmeeeeeee!!” that isn’t quite…the right note. He damn well tried, though.
In spite of their flaws, Cynthia were a pretty phenomenal band. I truly appreciate the intricacies they placed in their compositions and their out-of-the-box approach to typical song archetypes of the time. While I can see their success being limited by their somewhat strange quality of their vocalist’s voice, they definitely deserve more credit today than they currently get. If you check out this album and like what you hear, I also recommend checking out their contemporary partner L,Dear, another symphonic band that had some great guitar work but had fairly long songs similar to how X wrote their classics like “Jealousy” and “Dhalia.”
Ok. I'll be the one to say it. This guy needs to stop pretending to be Japanese. All of his music and releases, guys visuals, track names, etc is the most cringe inducing I've ever experienced in my entire life. I thought Tokio Hotel were bad but this is on a different level. This is downright shameful and embarrassing.
Personally, I think its best if the guy just stops having relevancy. I could understand how ppl were swooning over him back when he was a super huge Hizaki fan boy. He was (?) a talented guitarist (that was in a terrible band). Now its like unnecessary for him releasing something to be considered news here imho. Almost no one here is checking for him nor cares for him. Furik is right, he really needs to stop.
howdy! like many of u visual fans here, im a big fan of AINS, they constantly churn out quality material from main bands diaura, kuroyuri to kage, gossip and grieva. someone mentioned the sublabels, and im confused as to how the label is managed as apparently malisend and mediena are on the label but i didn't know as they're on their own sublabels??? wtf is hoodwink or mad wink or whatever??
if someone can correct me and clarify what they know of how AINS is organized then it would be quite helpful. what wild ex-bandomen turned indies record mogul is behind the ~illusive~ label??
im simply curious as to how they structure the label; behind the scenes visual kei scoop is super interesting (more often than not it involves some fun illegal shit but i wont get my hopes up for AINS). i asked like 203048 different questions so dont kill me but any insight its appreciated^
tl;dr wtf is ains whos behind it what bands are on it how are the sublabels structured
SECRET LIVE VIDEO 1 (3,000yen, limited 15) & SECRET LIVE VIDEO 2 (3,500yen, limited 15) will be released at CERO BIRTHDAY EVENT "Here's looking at me, kid Vol.2" at HOLIDAY OSAKA at 2015/12/01
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