Saishu

Morrie's last solo album was full of vocal antics as well. It's no secret that his voice has changed over the years, and I wonder if age is forcing him to do weird shit to compensate for where his voice is lacking. Regardless, I still love him. And I second checking out Sculpture in Time. It's on par with what many consider the best VK albums, though it never seems to get mentioned. Lhasa is great as well, and Magic Theater is probably the last album La'cryma recorded before things got kind of bland. Though &.U definitely has some rockers on it.

He Henseifu is the song that got me into La'cryma Christi, and it was because of Hiro's spectacular guitar work. It remains one of my absolute favorite songs. Period. It's a perfect song.

This sounds like a ton of other Merry songs.

Straight up the only jrock band other than DEG that I give a shit about anymore.

I listened to Vulgar today and enjoyed it way more than I have in the past. Still hate R to the Core and Child Prey though.

I want that shirt.

A fucking selfie stick? Gackt. What?

That would explain why all of Jin's clean singing sounds like he's holding back a sneeze.

Is Tetsu going to wear that collar permanently? Wtf.

People often note similarities between MUCC and XAA-XAA, and I hope that doesn't carry over into how often they release material. That is, I don't want a good thing quickly get watered down because they don't pace themselves. MUCC, at one point, was releasing three to four singles (with b-sides) and then an album EVERY YEAR. Hell, in 2006 they released four singles, and two albums. It became overwhelming. MUCC had slowed down significantly, but at the cost of some fans already being burnt out. I know I personally haven't loved anything MUCC has done since Kyuutai. So, that said, I hope XAA-XAA doesn't follow the same route. These guys have enormous potential and showed me VK may still have some life in it. But, then again, so did NoGod. Eh.

You got 8 strings, you better use them all. Otherwise just do what The Presidents of the United States of America did and pull half the strings off.

Stephan Carpenter from Deftones uses an 8 string, and I think it's justified because he isn't just strictly chugging his way thru everything. And there's Tosin Abasi who's borderline alien and utilizes the entire fretboard on his 8 string. Outside of that I'm hard pressed to think of other bands that need a use for it. Hell, how do these Japanese dudes with tiny hands expect to wrap their dwarves mitts around a larger neck? Kaoru and Die can barely hold a 7 string.

I don't understand the point of using extended range guitars when you write the majority of your riffs on the top two strings...

I always wonder how a band comes to agree that only one member should be on a cover.

Why would anyone in the band use an 8 string guitar when they can barely make sense of 6 strings? god, does this mean Jin is going to attempt writing djent songs? Do we call him Djin now?

No, do it. You need to experience this. It's unbelievable. I mean, this isn't just like "meh these guys aren't anything special", this seems like a band actively being terrible on purpose.

And at least a quarter of the songs on Vol. 1 are on Vol. 2. Which is super fucking lame. Also, no remastering is fine, because remastering these days just means "make it louder and ruin the dynamics."

Like, seriously, when I listened to the album, there was no indication that anyone in this band has a basic understanding of how music works. The band is explosive aural diarrhea and Mao constantly "singing" thru comically distorted filters is the bloody vomit on top of the shit cake. Why is this a thing? Why is it being supported enough for it to continue existing? Why did Sadie have to end for this to begin? I am baffled.

Worst band to come out of 2016.

I've probably said this already, but Shinya was perfectly fine until DEG ventured into the "heavy progressive" genre and he was then tasked with matching the speed and aggression of the music with his drumming. Shinya can blast, he just doesn't do the extreme blasting you hear in tons of metal these days (there are different types of blast beats after all, and technically he's been blasting since the beginning). And that's fine, because I feel like blast beats should be flourishes here and there, not the main rhythm of the song. I think he's improved in the last year or so, but as I've also mentioned before, he mostly only falls apart live. And Shinya himself has said as much.

Why are they ignoring Hana Kotoba?

Wait, some of these were already on the first Traces album!

Thats like some Evangelion shit.

Guess I'll be the first to say I am NOT excited, because I think a majority of Gazette's ballads are absolutely boring. However, the fact that these are re-recorded has me slightly intrigued. The originals are always there.

Weed is legal in some places. Clearly not in Japan. C'est la vie.