Saishu

I got bored and decided to incorporate And Zero and Tefutefu into Arche's tracklist. I ended up completely rearranging everything and ended up with a really weird song sequence. Turns out Un Deux is actually a good album closer.

That's from the Arche Budokan menu. Probably written specifically for the DVD. Would have made a great SE, though.

DEG needs to straight up make an album with an orchestra instead of cheesy keyboard symphonics.

YES!!!

Dude! And people thought DEG didn't know how to have fun anymore.

Or... just the live recording on the CD sounds like shit, because the blu-ray version sounds fine. Thinking the audio was "fixed".

Phenomenon sounds like shit live. They didn't work that one out well at all.

The chorus is a vague hint at earlier days, but other than that it's par the course for DEG. I don't want to pass actual judgment until I get a better quality rip, or I have the disc in my hands.

If you're lucky. DEG has gone an entire year between singles.

Sakai should probably grow the goatee again.

I used to assume the heavier stuff was probably Kyo, but it's most likely Kaoru. Die's songs are easy to identify; just listen for the jangle.

The only other song I know of with Kyo's name on it is Hades. There's a possibility that Sajou no Uta is his because there's a clip of him workin out the chords with Die. Which consisted of Kyo having Die play a chord until it sounded like the one he wanted.

Well, even during the days when individual band members got songwriting credits, Kaoru's name was the most featured. I think it's safe to say he's the chief songwriter, and you can almost always tell what songs he DIDN'T compose. I knew right away that Tousei and Kaishun were the work of Die.

The "perfect edition" live performance of Uroko has questionable moments (the choice to not have any rhythm guitar in favor of a dual solo kind of bothers me), but the way Kyo nails the final note in the a capella part (bataaa tsuKAAAAAA!!!) gives me chills. He's still rough around as a vocalist, but there's no doubt that he's improved and has taken steps to better his technique and care for his voice.

Seriously. You'd think at this point he'd have a better handle in English. At least we're past the days of "FOOCHA FOOCHA" though.

Kyo is getting the words out fast, but the music itself isn't particularly fast compared to other songs like Zan or Uroko. It's about the same tempo as the "fast" part in Unraveling (the first part of the guitar solo).

Yeah, that version brought out more of the song, plus putting on headphones helped immensely. Liking what Toshiya brought to the table on this one.

According to interviews, when they were writing and recording for DSS the band never actually worked together. They would each create parts and send them back and forth via email and such. The songs were then pieced together that way. There was never any point where they rehearsed the songs all together in the same room until it was time to play live. Supposedly they changed that for Arche.

Last time I saw them live (2012? Whenever the US leg of the DSS tour was) it was mostly a problem of five dudes trying to recreate material in a live setting that was never actually played as such until the tour. A lot of songs sounded thin, almost empty. It was a rough sounding era on par with 2005-2006 when Kyo would run out of breath and drop a good chunk of the lyrics.

I don't think the aim for Arche was "what sells more", but more "let's write some songs we can actually play live." Because, honestly, big a fan as I am, very few of the lives I've heard from the DSS era were anything short of a disaster. I know some Arche songs haven't translated well live, either, but not on the same level as DSS.

Arche is a lot more palatable to anyone that may have jumped ship at some point in the last 8-10 years, especially to anyone that just couldn't deal with DSS.

They edited a song that's 3:10 into 2:50? The hell was the point?

Saku and Maggots had a mentally disturbed baby.

Not gonna say too much about a shitty radio rip, but it's okay from what I can tell.

All over the place sounds about right for DEG lately. At least for the last five years.