Kira_Uchiha

It's a really interesting topic. Nearly a decade back, I was a little weeb and was all "JAPANESE MEWSIC MASTER RACE" and I refused to like any music outside of Asian countries. A few years later I started to really open up and give a fair listen to European and American bands that weren't Linkin Park (because I've always liked them, they were my introduction to rock and metal), and now most of my music consists more of Western bands than Eastern ones. When I got into Western bands, the first band that really took me time to get into was Periphery. I really thought that a lot of their music was just a mess, and listened only to songs with simple structure like Erised and Priestess. I didn't get odd time signatures and poly-rhythms. But after a while, it actually clicked with me, and Periphery is one of my absolute favorite bands, and Periphery II: This Time It's Personal and their Juggernaut albums are albums that I consider to be masterpieces. Another band that took me time to get into was the godfather of Djent, Meshuggah. I still have a hard time sometimes to get into them, but I'm appreciating their music more and more. Apart from bands like these, I also discovered that what I look for the most when I listen to songs is good songwriting. A song can be authentic and full of energy and performed with character, but if I think that the songwriting sucks, I just won't be able to stick to it, no matter how many times I listen to it. That's why I'm not much into popular music, into much of visual kei, into much of metalcore and deathcore(even death/black metal for that matter): 80% of the songwriting in this genre is either bland and generic as fuck, or just plain bad, and that's coming from someone who's favorite genre is metalcore (and prog metal). Of course it's not just songwriting that I look at, but that's the most important factor for me.

I can't get into Matenrou Opera because of the singer, I hate his voice, he uses vibrato WAY too damn much and is a bit too whiny/high-pitched for my taste.

Just noticed you updated your recommendations, thanks! AND Eccentric Agent kinda sounds a bit too much like they wanna be The GazettE x) But Reign sounds interesting, I looked up a few stuff from them and Death Waltz is really sticking with me, it's a greatly written song. But hoLY SHIT MY FIRST STORY SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I NEED! Thanks, I needed my fix of old school ONE OK ROCK, I miss this sound from them.

Thank you But you know, sometimes a little bit of pressure mixed with motivation is needed to keep going, and I realised that, albeit too late. I learned from my mistakes in my relationship about how complacent I was with myself, and that being stagnant drove me into a dark place. I don't want to do these things out of obligation towards my ex or anyone else, I want to do these because I believe it will help me being more productive, and happier. Ofc I will have to be careful not to burn out too.

VK has become as stale as metalcore/deathcore, just a bunch of bands copying each other with sub-par vocalists and bland songwriting. Still found a few good bands thanks to some of your recommendations. Well idk if this is an unpopular opinion now.

What now? The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the worl- Wait no x) Well now, I'll just keep on going with my life, and do my best, strive to improve myself and work on my future, write as many songs as I can. But as of rn, I'll focus on moving on first I guess, which is going to be quite a bitch since we go to the same uni and do the same course.

I wanted to keep you guys updated. So... my girlfriend and I broke up a few hours back. It feels unfair and horrible, but it is what it is.

I'd recommend saving up for a brand new SM57 because of the better build quality. The Pyle PDMIC 78 really seems like a good alternative but one big problem is that this mic is "unbalanced", meaning it's extremely prone to electrical interference. At best you'd get a small hum noise, at worst the sound you get might be unusable. And also you can mix your guitars in FL Studio, no problems there.

They stick too much to stereotypes rather than taking VK and make their own spin on it. Taking inspiration from Japanese is fine, but they're not Japanese, and trying to copy them makes Western VK either bland or cringey af.

Reaper for sure, it's easy to use and has a 60 day trial and after the 60 days you can still keep using it.

Thanks for all of your suggestions! For Dezert, I downloaded as much of their stuff as I could find, old and new. I listened to a few of their songs and I must say, they're my favorite suggestion so far. Vamps' new album also sounds nice, and is a good change of sound, I didn't like their previous releases so much, it seems like this album might be the one that catches my attention. This reminds me of the VK cringe thread, just with better production, the singer's acting is fucking gold x) Did he release anything for his solo? Just a single? It sounds so good. Sioux sounds nice, but I can't really get behind the singer, his vocals sound pretty weird. And Develop One's Faculties is a big surprise, they are pretty creative, I love it! Ahhh I tried listening to gossip and imo these guys are definitely not a good ripoff of the Gazette. Sarigia on the other hand show some promise. It's sad that there's nothing else like in the Dim and Stacked Rubbish era, those were fucking amazing. And I like their more progressive rock/metal songs such as Dogma and Ominous, those are really well structured songs. I tried listening to the songs you sent a few times but sorry, I don't really connect to this band. They aren't bad, it's more like they have great ideas but poorly executed. For example after the first 38 seconds of the first song, it kinda just falls flat. But thank you for your suggestion either way

Thanks a lot, I'll check everything out when I get back home. It feels like a smart concept though, starting really small and progressively get better. HAH Dad jokes, hell yeah I'll take you up on that offer Thank you, with all the help and support I'm seeing on this thread, I feel like I can definitely do it and get better, and I do hope this helps to inspire others who are struggling too.

Hello there beautiful people, I hope you're doing great. It's been a long time since I've last seriously delved into Japanese music, especially Visual Kei. It's been 3-4 years I think. I kinda grew out of it because most bands started to sound the same to me, but I'd love to get back into it. What I'm looking for are artists similar in style to D'espairsRay (preferably [Coll:set] era), Dir En Grey (old and new, but Uroboros era hmmm), 12012 (DEICIDA OF SILENCE), Alice Nine (Gemini era), amber gris, the Gazette (DIM era), ONE OK ROCK (Niche Syndrome era), sukekiyo and Versailles. Anything that fit in these styles, or come quite close to them? I'd love to discover some new talent from Japan after so long.

Cutting out toxic people was a problem I had. I used to have this friend, who was my best friend at the time, but nothing was enough for her y'know, she just kept asking more and more from me... Luckily with the support of other friends, I was able to cut her out, which is something I never had the courage to do before. I'm glad you're surrounded by great people that helped you, and are still helping you

I'm a lil bit overwhelmed, thanks to each and every of you for your replies. To make it clear, it's not clinical depression, it's much less than that. I've got no problems eating, interacting with people when I'm put in a social situation and such. Where it's really affecting me is in my motivation, my productivity, my drive and my relationships outside of people I interact with mostly on a daily basis. It's a state of me most of the time feeling worthless and feeling like I'm wasting my time everyday, not progressing in life, as if I've hit a wall. 80% of last year was spent mostly with uni, not really being able to work on what I wanted to do. The graphic design course doesn't have end of semester exams like other courses, it focuses only on assignments throughout the semester, so I can't really slack on that. When I actually have the time for myself, I feel too emotionally drained to actually get up and get to work on my personal life. I'm aware I'm mostly making excuses, and that's what's making it worse: I'm aware of it, and I want to be able to change my mindset. I'm 21, turning 22 in around 2 weeks. I'm already in my 3rd year of graphic design so I'll finish it, and I do plan on maybe taking on another course, but that would be when I leave the country I currently live in. I live in Mauritius, which is not bad of a country, but not really a good place to be if you're not planning to work "common" jobs such as accountant, manager, and such. I'm trying to slowly work on what I love, that is songwriting. I'm working on it in small chunks though, if I work for too long on it I feel mentally drained, especially since my personal problems are still dragging on my mind a little. Anyway, thank you for your reply Hey it's cool you know, it seems like you needed a small place to vent out too, so don't worry about going overboard here. We all need to let it out sometimes right? Thanks for your reply, this is the only place I talked about my depression, and tbh just letting it out here felt like it did lighten this burden a little. I do hope it helped you too to vent a little, we're all in this life together, so let's just try and make smth nice out of it. Hey thanks for sharing your experience, right now one of the biggest problems I'm dealing is overthinking everything I do. It's bad, most days I just sleep and eat when my parents aren't dragging me out of the house. But exercising did help me get out a little of this lethargic state. Hopefully I can find ways to stop, or at least reduce how much I overthink, because it's really putting a big burden on my songwriting. I agree with you, especially about the grind. The monotony of this cycle is something I've always dreaded ever since I first experienced it. Having your pay at the end of each month isn't really motivating, it's much more about survival, you gotta do it if you want to live in this society. I'd love to make a living out of music but I know it's not realistic, especially not where I live. I'm still going to work towards this goal though, while trying to find jobs in fields related to music, always good to have a fail-safe. I don't think I've reached the point yet where I need medication, I still have some fight left in me, I want to get better and I want to improve myself, and I don't want to spend the rest of my days hating my life and myself. Thanks for your reply. Meditation is something I've been contemplating for a while, I just don't know where to start. Where did you start learning kaizen? Online? Or somewhere near where you live? I think it would really help me especially with concentration and productivity. Heh yeah, doing what you like or being surrounded by people you like is really helpful, but sometimes I just fall back into it when I'm not surrounded by positive stimuli, you know? But as for travelling, it's something I'm definitely planning. I want to move away actually, I think changing my environment could help. I'm thinking maybe Canada. Japan would be someplace I'd love to visit someday, it's been my dream ever since I was a little weeb. Thanks for your reply I'm luckily not in the state where my depression is as crippling and/or life threatening. What it really cripples right now is my productivity and my motivation. Sometimes it happens that in quite short bursts I get the urge to actually do shit, and this usually lasts for 2 hours max, and then for a week straight I won't get the courage to do things. I'm trying to slowly work on this, and do small chunks everyday. I do hope that your case is improving, slowly maybe but surely, take care of yourself. Thanks to all of you for your replies, and sorry I wasn't able to reply to everyone here, the posts and support here are just overwhelming, thank you so much.

Hi there people, it's been ages since I've been on this website. I've been a member for a really long time (maybe a few of you might remember me), but during the last two years or so I started having depression, and this made me become less and less socially active here, on facebook, etc, and even irl. The only people with whom I was interacting with were my friends at university and my girlfriend (who's in the same group of friends as I). It wasn't bad depression as in I wanted to off myself, but it was bad enough to suck a LOT of my positivity and joy of living, which caused me to slowly closing myself in my cocoon, become pessimistic and unmotivated. And last year it also made my relationship with my girlfriend deteriorate. I tried to pinpoint what caused this depression and i think it was partly because of university. What I'm studying there feels completely bland to me. I'm studying graphic design and it has it's interesting moments, but a lot of it is bloated with repetitive and numbing tasks/assignments. And the other part is since I'm doing something I'm not passionate about, I started feeling really scared and stressed about my future. Recently, before the new year I started to try and pick myself up. I realised that if I continued down this road I would be a speck of who I was, and I don't want to "lose myself" (so cliche omfg sorry). I started to try and think more positively and try to make something out of this negativity. I started to exercise, and picking up songwriting, since music is really what I'm passionate about, and I want to work towards it, even though I still have to deal with graphic design and I probably won't be able to make a living out of music if I don't plan things properly, and actually write regularly. Even though I may not make a living with music, I still want to try my best, and if it doesn't work, at least I tried and I can still keep it as a hobby. I'd like to know, if anyone ever experienced depression here, however light or heavy it was, how did you get out of it? How did you cope with it? Also sorry if this isn't the right place to post this.

Thanks a lot Zeus ^^ Yes, I am very lucky to have someone like her in my life, she's the biggest reason why I was able to get through everything and get back up. And yes, that what I just did. I don't want to have anything to do with her anymore, she's not worth all this drama. And especially since she tried blackmail me emotionally several times, which is absolutely disgusting. I am glad I was able to move on, and thank you for leaving a message!^^

Alright alright alright, hello people. It's been quite a long time since I last posted here. What happened is, I lost my best friend and I had quite a depression during these past few months. We have been friends for a bit more than 3 years, she's a year older than me, and ever the beginning of 2015, I started to go at the same university as her. We became a lot closer thanks to that, and everything was going really well. She's doing Business & Finance, and I'm doing Graphic Design. The thing is that every courses there have exams except for Graphic Design, where the exams are replaced by a shit ton of additional assignments. So as the semester went on, I would get busier and busier, and I explained that to her. For my first two semester in 2015, it went good, I was able to work(except for the last weeks where I had 5 assignments to give back, weeks of sleepless nights), I was able to keep time for her and for my new friends. During the holidays in December, a friend from my class and I started dating, and she eventually became my girlfriend. I told my best friend(let's call her Sara) about it, she seemed upset at first, but then congratulated me and then said that she couldn't wait to meet her. I thought she was upset cuz she wanted us to date, but I did propose her before and she said that she'd rather stay friends. They met a few times when we were with a group of friends, and everything went okay. They weren't able to get really close though, cuz Sara is someone who's very high maintenance(and also takes friendship REALLY seriously, Fairy Tail level), and my girlfriend didn't really want to become close with someone like that, but she was absolutely okay with me hanging out with Sara, cuz well, she was my best friend. So it all went okay, until university resumed at the beginning of this year. There was an anime convention at another university close by, Sara and I were invited to perform there (me: singing, her: dancing, and other stuffs if she felt like it). Unfortunately because of the huge workload that I got at the beginning of the semester, I had to refuse, but she accepted to perform there, and I was happy for her. Sara told me that she was going to do a "senpai - kouhai" sketch, and asked me to help her prepare the script. I told her that I would help her whenever I had the time for sure, because I had a lot of work to do. I was helping her, while trying to keep a grip on my work. Then a few weeks later, she asked to come at the university early(8am) for 2 days, and I told her that I'd come, but only if I'm able to complete most of my work. Sara put a lot of pressure on me, like, a WHOLE lot of pressure, coming near to emotional blackmail. In the end, I did not go, as I still had quite a few assignments to finish, and with her putting even more pressure on me, I nearly snapped. The thing is, something in the past happened to me that now, a real big excess of stress can cause me to snap... I never told her about that, cuz that's a really dark part of my past that I'd rather forget(this story will be for another time), but was unable to. I thought that it was now time to tell her everything, because I know that in the future there would be moments when she'd keep putting pressure on me, and that I would actually snap for real. So after my submissions, I decided to tell her everything... and tbh, it felt good to finally let everything out. She was the first person to whom I ever revealed this part of my past. She was really understanding after I told her everything... but after 3 days, she started going back to putting pressure for me to meet her. And this time, this wasn't for one or two days, she wanted to meet me everyday, every free moments that I had, before classes, after classes. When she saw my girlfriend and I, she'd come and butt in between, ask us to not hold hands, etc in front of her. After a few weeks of that, I had enough and decided to tell her that I needed my alone time, time with my girlfriend, and time with my other friends. But before I was able to talk to her about it, she asked me if my girlfriend didn't like her. I had a talk with my girlfriend, and she told me that she thought Sara was a good person, and the only thing she disliked was Sara's overpossessive and clingy manners. I was honest with Sara and told her what my girlfriend thought, being precise about the part where she ONLY disliked her clingy ways, and nothing else. And before I could say anything about me needing time for myself, she told me that she's tired of that(her old best friend's girlfriend didn't like Sara, and he decided to stop talking to her because of his girlfriend), and that no matter what she does, she just feels that we're drifting away, and so on. I told her again that my girlfriend didn't mind at all that Sara and I stayed friends, it wasn't because of one thing that she didn't like that she'd prevent us from staying friends. Sara didn't want to hear any of it, and then decided to end our friendship. I told her that we could end it on good terms at least, she said okay and went away. I fell into depression... and after 5 months, I was able to get back on my feet, thanks to my girlfriend, friends from my class, and mutual friends I had with Sara. I started to get better. But then around 3-4 weeks ago, I got to know from a mutual friend that Sara was talking shit behind my back, that she was putting the end of our friendship on my back, saying that it was all my fault, saying that she made every efforts and that I nothing... She said that she wanted to "hurt" me, and tried to use several our friends to trick me and invite me to their place, and she would be there to "trap" me. She even used a friend to try to send me emotional blackmail. Fucking emotional blackmail. But luckily, they all came clean to me, telling me what Sara was planning. Even two days ago, Sara tried to manipulate a good friend of mine to trap me, but it failed. At least I know there are some friends I can trust After this, I felt so stupid that I fell into depression because of someone like her, and that I am now better off without her. I am now so fucking over her. I have a happy life with my girlfriend and with all my friends, I don't need any of her bullshit in my life. And woah... as I am typing this part, she just sent me a message on Facebook: "Sup nigga? ~w~" I can't even- Anyway, yeah that's the story. Sorry for the absurdly long post, but this is the only place where I feel can really share this.

ONE WEEK TO GO AND THIS SEMESTER WILL FINALLY BE OVER AWWWW YISSS!!! Ugh but I got 5 deadlines before that T^T

Don't take it so hard man, live and learn, you've already expressed yourself better in this post so yeah, just relax and be cool If you have an opinion about a band and you can find a way to clearly explain what you like and dislike about their sound, songwriting, members, whatever, then post it cuz as long as your argument is constructive, it's totally fine =w=

lynchisizer, bruh look, no one is blaming you for having an opinion. Everyone view things differently, so clashes in opinion is completely normal. Criticism is fine but ffs if you'll come in here to be like "Meh I don't like this band because of (insert trivial reason here)", then you'll just ruin the enjoyment for everyone. On the other hand, constructive criticism would make much more for a good discussion. Your arguments: -"If they would have a better screamer" Why don't you find him to be a good screamer? Ofc he's not the best, but he is WAY better than most of the metalcore/deathcore/hardcore scene combined. His screams are consistent and powerful(especially in their last album, he improved noticeably). -"real clean vocal passages" Those are gang vocals, not clean vocals, and they fit the music really well. Plus the anthemic gang vocals are really a fresh change from the cliche clean vocals which you can find in 98% of core music. -"try too hard to be Parkway Drive songwriting-wise" Now this...are you serious? Okay Parkway Drive do have their "gang vocals" moments but jfc WSS songwriting is SO different from Parkway Drive. I don't how or why you would find them similar. I've been listening to Parkway Drive for years, and I can tell you that While She Sleep's style much more melodic and diverse, especially their riffs. And oh, less chugging too. -"I stick to lynch., Architects & Parkway Drive \m/" Well good for you but there are other threads to show your preferences in music, this is a thread about WSS, so please stay on topic and don't fanboy/girl/gender on other bands here, this will just help piss people off. So yeah, if you got a constructive criticism/opinion it's cool, otherwise please keep it to yourself and don't ruin other people's enjoyment please. Ofc it's your right to post, but I think it's common courtesy to just move along if something doesn't match your taste.

Alright alright alright, welcome to MH You have pretty good taste in music, so that's some points scored already x) Enjoy your time here ( ^-^)/