Nowhere Girl

Because it's the book-end of that album cycle, or so they said.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/3r2ecnbtxjymt8f/Ranunculus_%28Piano_Ver.%29.mp3/file
 
In case anyone wants the mp3 of the SE

aaaand it's cancelled
 
but they'll do a 5days livestream on youtube

 
Starting tomorrow at 7 pm JST.
Not sure what they will show, it just says "member-devised setlist"... and it also won't be archived, sooo I'll see if I can record it.

Yeah, don't get the wrong idea; I do like TIW. I just don't love it. Even though bad mastering killed the album for me, the songs aren't terrible, proved by how well they translated live. In fact, I vastly prefer it live, and I wish they'd recorded it that way. Kyo's vocals on Ranunculus live are fantastic. However, the songwriting itself is occasionally blah on this album. I feel like repetition has set in, with several songs being copy-pastes of material we've heard before. It's been the first DEG era where I've felt somewhat disconnected from the music.
 
I will admit that the endless Japan-only From Depression To... tours with appallingly expensive fanclub-exclusive Blu-Rays did not help my demeanour going into this album. That was a really, really boring time to be a DEG fan.
 
Best Of album was inevitable. Aside from FUKAI, the re-recorded songs from this suck tbh, and the videos are just trash. I don't really care for this release, but it's not intended for me, so it doesn't matter.
 
As for re-recordings, it's funny that they re-recorded Ash *again*, although this rendition is pretty good. Likewise THE DEEPER VILENESS is just disgusting; I love it. Acoustic DOZING GREEN is perfect.
 
The World of Mercy is a great single. A slow-burner, for sure. This should have been on the album to make it over an hour. Even so, I'm glad to see another long non-album single like ain't afraid to die. 

Yeah, don't get the wrong idea; I do like TIW. I just don't love it. Even though bad mastering killed the album for me, the songs aren't terrible, proved by how well they translated live. In fact, I vastly prefer it live, and I wish they'd recorded it that way. Kyo's vocals on Ranunculus live are fantastic. However, the songwriting itself is occasionally blah on this album. I feel like repetition has set in, with several songs being copy-pastes of material we've heard before. It's been the first DEG era where I've felt somewhat disconnected from the music.
 
I will admit that the endless Japan-only From Depression To... tours with appallingly expensive fanclub-exclusive Blu-Rays did not help my demeanour going into this album. That was a really, really boring time to be a DEG fan.
 
Best Of album was inevitable. Aside from FUKAI, the re-recorded songs from this suck tbh, and the videos are just trash. I don't really care for this release, but it's not intended for me, so it doesn't matter.
 
As for re-recordings, it's funny that they re-recorded Ash *again*, although this rendition is pretty good. Likewise THE DEEPER VILENESS is just disgusting; I love it. Acoustic DOZING GREEN is perfect.
 
The World of Mercy is a great single. A slow-burner, for sure. This should have been on the album to make it over an hour. Even so, I'm glad to see another long non-album single like ain't afraid to die. 

Yeah. That's due to the Budokan being used for Olympics.

Also, we kinda received second Unraveling (seven re-recordings from 2016 till these days), nostalgia tour, best album, long single. It was the wild ride.

The sad thing is, this is so true. haha.

He would make so much money, it's not even funny. 

If it's a full-on war, Kyo's going to branch out into more than just 'video and audio compilations'.
Perhaps have his own erect penis cast as a dildo to release with the next album. Rammstein did it (NSFW, obviously).
 
 

Maybe Kyo is about to take on Till Lindemann in a fight of musical/art sex war shenanigans. Kyo, the porno, pending....

Isn't that... kinda the point of a cover? To play another band's song? 
Not sure what there is to be disappointed about here. Deg's version is, for starters, an entirely different genre. They did quite a lot with it.

... and their tour is apparently called 「DRIPPIN’」. Haven't really paying attention since ADORATIO, tbh.

I met Game Grumps today, and asked Arin to sign the picture of Gackt in the Merveilles booklet since he said he wanted Gackt to fuck him in the ass.
 
Here's some notable things:
- Arin remembers saying he wants Gackt to fuck him in the ass
 
- Arin enthusiastically took the booklet and signed the picture of Gackt whilst saying aggressively "Damn right I'd let Gackt fuck me"
 
-Arin exclaimed how beautiful he finds Gackt upon Dan saying so himself
 
-Arin knows of Malice Mizer 
 
-Upon asking Danny to sign whoever he found most beautiful, he chose Mana, despite struggling to pick.
 
Here's the beauty itself (they loved my partners Danny Sexbang cosplay, Danny said she was "Dressed for success" xD)
 
 

Extended gig report from Berlin since I did one from Warsaw a year and a half back.
 
The scene: Berlin, shaking and dying, sporting a bloodshot visage from the night previous as usual, I had managed to score some decent vegetables from the bazaar at a rather handsome price for Germany, all in an effort to recover before the show, but I'm thinking: will these carry me over? Just how many gin tonics is too many? Either way duty calls and I head out to meet Gaz in a bar nearby, who already a few beers deep inadvertently encouraged me to go for one that was 15% and then it was off to the races. 
 
The bridge to Friedrichschain; running to take a piss somewhere in the corner I step on human shit, I was thinking that the only way that this isn't the worse thing that would happen to me today would be if they played The Final for the encore. I take out 40 euros from the ATM and it charges me 4 euros for the transaction. Fuck it. I'm getting beer, and this is the only way. No one takes card in a conspiracy to bleed me dry. I see Whirlingblack and two of our mutuals coming over; I bum a cigarette; the line is possibly the fastest moving I've ever experienced in my life, especially considering just how long it was; turns out the reason why it was moving fast was the inspection for the ticket was literally the door man taking a cursory look almost in the direction of my phone and going "boom" and letting me in. I got the ticket just the night before and it was nice to see that was for nothing. Could've used someone else's and I'll remember that next time.
 
Lots of merch; I get nothing; I get a beer and some shots instead. In Warsaw I got three, now I got four. I've upgraded. The plan is that the second the lights go out we'll just strafe by the wall and when it gets heavy we'll just muscle our way to the center for the pit. Works every time and did so again. 
 
Okay, so the concert had exactly the same setlist as the previous, which is the full Insulated World album, World of Mercy, Merciless Cult and a rotating encore song. This was my first time seeing them with a set that was dedicated to promoting an album so I was moderately excited about that despite not being hugely into the fucking thing. This model works in a live context fairly well imo, like the mood is consistent and you get to see the thing in a slightly altered light; but most importantly of all that meant that this could just be the first time I won't get to hear The Final and an even better chance to never hear Sustain the Untruth ever again. The whole thing kicks off with Zetsuentai and the one marked difference from the 2018 tour is that the theatricality is even more present than last time. The first performances of Devote My Life and Keibetsu Hajimari went by like a blur in an underwhelming fashion, whereas now they've got synchronised head banging and a lot sharper performance by Kyo, who must've after performing all those songs like a hundred times now figured out how to make them work. The heavier stuff worked very well this time around and I wasn't the only one feeling the physicality since the crowd in Berlin was, for the most part, really good. Loud, energetic and the second I saw the pit was going I joined it and stuck by it til the very end. It wasn't even one of those usual weeb pits where you'll see people politely shoving each other, nope, it was the closest I've felt to a real one in one of these shows since 2010. Occasionally shit would be really tight like during Merciless Cult ( I actually in retrospect wish we would have gotten more old songs based on how good this was ) and Devote my life and although I'm just a bit saddened about no wall of death happening despite the chances definitely being there, it was still obviously really good; maybe even too good perhaps, because I do remember some of the looks from people nearby who weren't much having it. Too bad my philosophy is that leben ist krieg and if you're not in shape to hold your own, go to the back and sit on your phone there. By the end I remember one dude air punching himself a karate pit and at some point that enraged some other short purple haired dude; and of all the times to do this bullshit it was during the biggest surprise of the night which was NEW AGE CULTURE. I think eventually security stepped in on that dude flexing in front of his stupid girlfriend I guess.
 
So yeah as far as the band goes, I honestly don't remember any moment when a complaint would've registered. The sound in the venue was good and that made it already just a bit better than the usual, and looking at the clips on youtube I'd say yeah, it's the usual for 2020 Deg. They're really good live rn imo, way better than before the mode of tours. One thing that has to be said tho is that Kyo did sound just a liiiiiitle more constrained that what I remember from last year. Followers is a rough fucking song to pull off, and World of Mercy has some difficult parts as well. I guess it just comes with the territory, doing all these tours like this; my opinion on the matter is that if you're actually minding shit other than your phone recording, you don't really care that much. 
 
The shows ends after the Followers, NEW AGE CULTURE and Utafumi encore that got such a loud reaction by the end that I was almost hoping for them to come back for a second encore. This was not to be however, so after picking up Die's pick from the ground by accident and waiting half a century for my jacket we scatter off into whirlingblack's hotel that was just around the corner, and what better way to cap off the gig other than washing away all the memories and a few others with a rather absurd and expensive haul for the already overpriced kiosk downstairs; and by the time I got back to my hostel all that red wine, sparkling wine, beers and a few others went back to where they came and where I should've went myself: the toilets of Berlin.
 
 

On the plus side, that's less money to spend. Nice!

he's such a miserable low-vibrational aquarius I can't @ all that brain purge 
 
nvm I'm surprised they don't have enough JSL Matts in American embassy over there, but I'd have assumed "I fuck your daughter on your grave" is an acceptable career inquiry response?..
 

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/01/heavy-culture-dir-en-grey-kyo/?fbclid=IwAR2P7l5zDPuaFQQabOWvaO6VN-lap1oBjLsePkbvwYWQ1ToviZrK-Jwm5A4
 
On newer Japanese bands such as BABYMETAL
 
"In regards to BABYMETAL, you just can’t say anything bad about them, can you? The band’s very talented musicians and the girls are powerful performers. The singers are very young hard working ladies who could be your own daughters, how could you not think they are doing a great job? That’s almost like a trick question, I feel."
 
a surprisingly wholesome answer from kyo

Tracklist:
1. "絶縁体" (Zetsuentai)
2. "人間を被る" (Ningen o Kaburu)
3. "Downfall"
4. "Devote My Life"
5. "Values of Madness"
6. "Celebrate Empty Howls"
7. "赫" (Aka)
8. "Merciless Cult"
9. "Rubbish Heap"
10. "軽蔑と始まり" (Keibetsu to Hajimari)
11. "谿壑の欲" (Keigaku no Yoku)
12. "Ranunculus"
13. "The World of Mercy"
 
Encore:
14. "Followers"
15. "朔-saku-"
16. "詩踏み" (Utafumi)
 
After an unceremonious dinner of two donuts, I trudged my way through the rain and darkness to Gramercy Theatre for Dir en grey's TOUR 19: THIS WAY TO SELF-DESTRUCTION stop at New York City. I had concerns about the weather since it was raining all week, but thankfully the rain eased up by the time I reached the back of the line. The line wasn't the sea of umbrellas I had anticipated; other Dir en grey fans were less fazed by the weather and relied on the scaffolding to shield them from the elements. I made quick friends in line with the fans around me and we got to shooting the clay about different visual kei bands, which really helped to pass the time.
 
Like I noted with my previous live experience at Playstation Theater, all types of fans rolled out to see the band; goth kings and queens, scene kids from high school and college, older metal heads, obvious netizens like myself, and everyone in between. One cosplayer impressed me with his "OBSCURE"-era Kyo outfit, while another gaggle of friends looked like shinobi. It's refreshing to know that Dir en grey's appeal is still universal. Unlike my experience in line at the GazettE, Dir en grey fans know their trivia.
 
The organization was impressive until I stepped inside the venue, at which point it looked like a bomb went off. For those not in the know, Gramercy Theatre has a max occupancy of 499 people. There felt like way more than 499 people in line and in the venue. The security check was much more extensive - the guy went through my bag twice to make sure I had no recording equipment before searching me for weapons - but that part was organized. The true chaos was differentiating the merchandise line from the coat check line from the alcohol line. Everything and everyone was one vibrant, pulsating mass the minute I made my way down the stairs to the basement level.
 
I fought my way to the merch line, which at this point was short because everyone was checking in their coats, and ten minutes I later I was greeted with disappointment. There were legit five pieces of merchandise available for sale, and the items I wanted were not in my size. Shirts were $40, the hoodie was $70. I spent enough money to pay down the karma debt on my years of downloading Dir en grey's music in one shot, and nabbed myself a sweet hoodie so big I could swim in it (as they only had small and extra large available). I'm shocked they didn't bring any copies of The Insulated World to sell, because I'm sure plenty of fans would have bought.
 
Shoved the goodies in my bag, checked in all my stuff for eight dollars (definitely recommend buying a ticket with guaranteed coat check to ease the process here), then fought my way upstairs and into the venue. It's pretty narrow at first, but quickly opens up to two sections, one for standing and one for sitting. There were easily 400 people here by the time I found the alcohol bar, and seats were disappearing fast. Copped a Bud Light for $14, then ended up sitting off to the left side for the entirety of the show. For sonic balance reasons I suggest you sit or stand as close to the center as you can; Die stood to the right side and I could barely hear him, but Toshiya and Kaoru stood to the left and I could hear them clearly.
 
BYSTS cancelled at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts, was no opening act for the New York show.  This was not communicated to us beforehand, so I sat around for what felt like an eternity before the show actually began. Once the lights dimmed the crowd came to life. As the band members strode onto stage one by one backed by an SE I've never heard before, all I could see were the instruments faintly coming into the light as the strobe lights moved so fast one could catch a seizure, and the crowd heads bobbing with the occasional camera capturing the live. 
 
It was time.
 
Despite Dir en grey performing both "絶縁体" (Zetsuentai) and "The World of Mercy", the show felt as if it passed even faster than the GazettE. Dir en grey gave a great show overall and performing the album songs live has changed my perspective on them. Kyo's Joker-lite face paint was a nice surprise for sure; I wonder how influenced he was by the eponymous movie released earlier this year. He tried to get us to sing along a few times and was obviously pissed when we didn't know the words, but what can you expect from a crowd whose first language isn't Japanese? I can recall he tried during "Rubbish Heap" and "The World of Mercy", and the second attempt was much more successful than the first. 
 

Photos courtesy of u/ raggedypan from Reddit.
 
The biggest change are my opinions on "絶縁体" and "Devote my Life", tracks I didn't enjoy on disc but enjoyed greatly live. Unfortunately, "The World of Mercy" is still a big miss for me. Even understanding that the song is the thematic end to The Insulated World didn't shake my convictions, although I must admit that the music video for this song is unapologetically brutal, even for Dir en grey. It is hard to describe what I saw since the video was censored with a triangle overlay, but there was a bloody rampage that starts about halfway through. I don't understand what's so shocking that it needs to be censored live, considering they played the uncensored versions of the "朔-saku-" and "人間" PV's. Having said that, Kyo pantomiming disembowelment during "The World of Mercy" is one of the highlights of the show for sure.
 
Aside from "赫" (Aka), most of the time the projects were little more than a lyrics video. "赫" (Aka) has a beautiful music video of burning baby dolls and piano with a red filter over all of it accompanied by some lyrics. It's tame so I hope they officially release it after the tour's conclusion. In comparison, "絶縁体"'s video is a more cryptic affair of flashing imagery, one that works better live than as a standalone music video. The way "絶縁体" ends stuck with me far after the show is over. At the end, the music video was revealed to be within the mind of a human, so thematically  "絶縁体" and "人間を被る" are much more connected than I thought. It also ends on same "human slicing" technique that we saw in "人間"'s PV. The heavy use of projection imagery also explains why the set lists for each stop on the North American tour are almost identical, save for one song in the encore.
 
I hope all of the visualizations and more come our way via the next installment of the AVERAGE collection of uncensored music videos (AVERAGE INCEL?).
 
This was an album-heavy show, but we still got some throw backs in the form of "Merciless Cult" and "朔-saku-". The former came on halfway through the show where as the latter was part of the encore. The new version of "朔-saku-" - which is basically the studio version with gutturals replacing the  screams - was pretty dope, but I felt that the new version of "Merciless Cult" live hit so much harder. "詩踏み", the encore closer, was also much better than the studio version. The extended distortion was the perfect way to end the encore. I'm jealous that Denver got "腐海" (Fukai 2018) and that Dallas got "理由" (Wake), but that's how it is sometimes.
 
The New York crowd was a rough one. I sat in the back like the old rock geezer I am, but at one point during the show I saw security pull one person out from the crowd who was getting crushed. There was also a crowd surfer at another point during the show, which was also wild. I actually got to spoke to him after and he was a pretty chill dude. If you are of a smaller frame or have doubts about the ferocity of the pit, I would find a seat before the show begins.

As the show winded down to a close, the band members disappeared one by one. Shinya and Kyo were the first to go, leaving the stage almost immediately after the encore. Shinya threw his drum sticks into the crowd and disappeared second; Kyo was first. Toshiya hung around for a bit but didn't engage the crowd much and left soon after. It was the two guitarists, Die and Kaoru, that entertained the crowd the most. They waved at the fans, threw picks and water bottles at the crowd, and took their leave after two minutes. We were treated to a bit more darkness before the lights cut on and reality came crawling back. The show was over and it was time to go home.

If getting inside the venue was a pain in the ass, getting out was an even bigger one. I played my cards right and still had trouble getting around. The downstairs area was simply too small to contain all of us. I heavily advise buying merchandise before coat check. There's a wider assortment of goodies available before the show and a lot of people wait until after the show to buy, so more likely than not you will always be on the shorter line. I was on line long enough to meet up with @Ro plz and chat about our experiences for a bit, but the scene was too chaotic and we were quickly separated. I tried to wait outside, but there was another show for SURFACES lined up and the security were motioning for us to disperse. I stuck around for ten minutes, chatted with some random fans, and bounced.
 
I had a blast and can definitely recommend seeing Dir en grey live if you have the money or can snag the tickets for a reasonable price. Money was the biggest contributing factor on my decision to go; buying the tickets from a scalper ran me almost $200!  This was one of their better live performances judged solely off of all the live recordings I have seen and heard of the band, and Kyo is in good shape vocally for this tour. Go with friends if you can, and if not try to arrange to meet up with people from here! Fans are really friendly to talk to considering none of us knew anything about each other other than that we were fans of the same band, but that speaks to how deeply music can connect people.
 
Until next time! 
 
 

uh exquise moi, only real fans (TM) are allowed to call him by his honmei (that means real name for you gaijins (that means foreigner for you foreigners out there) out there)
 
uh no he still HATES it even if he says he still wants to do it
because people always want to do things they HATE
and nobody in the history of everyone has EVER changed their opinion
obviously, statements from TEN YEARS AGO still are TRUE omg
you just don't get Kyo-sama the way I do smh

I’m proud that I was there for the one and only US appearance of Pink Killer
 
a treat for me and me alone

Very bold of Kyo to think overseas fans would sing along to a fairly new song. 

I wish I could get past the production of TIW, because there's some great songs on there and after seeing some of them live I really want to enjoy them recorded too - there's just a weird feeling of constantly being pushed up against a wall when I'm listening to it, and compared to the mixing/production of previous albums it was a disappointment. It feels quite claustrophobic in a way, so if that's what they were going for they nailed it, it's just not for me. Though I did revisit it a month or two back and it didn't bother me so much, so there's hope!
 
Hoping they maybe pull an UROBOROS ver.2 on it in five years so I can hear someone else's take. Actually, the person who mixed the original version of UROBOROS re-working it would probably be a good shout, the balance they had on that original version would work really well for the songs on TIW.

Hotarubi is my favourite song on MACABRE.

I also really like Taiyou no Ao.

My favorite album by them is Uroboros. Don't have anything else to say, it's just that good.
 
It's a bit hard for me to choose their worst album since I really dislike both Kisou and TIW, but going by the circumstances each one of those were released, I think TIW stands out negatively more. Kisou is an album by a band that is still trying to find their sound and is expanding their sonic palette by trying new things, but while the ideas are good on paper, it often fails flat when it comes to executing them. Saying that, I think Kisou succeeds at what it tries: to be a weird, experimental and off-putting album, which the strange-sounding production definitely adds to the atmosphere of the record.
 
The Insulated World, on the other hand, was released when the band already reached significant success and following, after a string of three records with very positive reception, and after the biggest interval between LP releases so it was a highly antecipated album. While Kisou at least has some originality, I feel like TIW is a rehash of ideas and formulas that already had some mixed reception at the time of their releases (see The Marrow of a Bone). The production is terrible and definitely doesn't add up to the album, the track order and pacing of the album is really problematic and the stand-out tracks are very by-the-numbers. Stuff from Kisou like "Jessica" or "Embryo" (and even though I don't like the studio version vocals, "24 Cyllinders" is an awesome composition) were legit stand-outs. I like "Ranunculus" a lot but I don't really think it has the power of their previous power ballads, and while the single tracks are fun to listen to, they are really underwhelming compared to the stuff that came before it. 
 
So yeah my complete list would be: Uroboros>Vulgar>DSS>Gauze>Arche>WtD>Marrow>Macabre>Kisou>TIW