K8A

[..kissing in the cosmos, Face to Face ..] My absolute favorite Luna Sea song, on my absolute favorite album. I feel the album was a step up in not only in musical quality and production, but in that it provided something more. It provided a narrative akin to a space opera. When I hear Ryuichi go into the chorus with the words "Face to face..", I picture scenes from.. not quite Blade Runner, but something close, yet more abstract and spiritual. I feel like I'm on a journey through space that is both sad and lonely, yet hopeful and fulfulling. It's weird. Not many albums make me picture scenes so vivid as MOTHER does. Then again, I'm a total scifi romantikku freak so that might play in as well of course. Still, I feel that it represents them wanting to step up their game and present something more than just an album. It's a journey to the future, while still being absolutely grounded in both time and place with it's very stylized 90's pop-rock, and I fucking absolutely love it.

Production sounds empty and lifeless. They removed the parts that made the song feel vivid and dynamic. Vocals sounds not interested.

It's short for my stage name, KEN Ochoa. K is simply for KEN, 8A is spanish for Ocho (8) A, which is my surname. My dad used to write his sig as 8A, so I stole it.

Starting to wonder what we don't have in common.

Really wasn't too fond of the single at first. Felt way too oyaji ROCKERS. But it grew on me. Quite liking it now. Quite alot, actually.

Listened through everything once more, and I guess the reference might not be as prevalent as I thought. Though there as so many things like atmosphere, instrumentation, guitar tone/picking/chords that remind me of the D2 ost.

Diablo 2 the band. What more can a man ask for.

Sure you got Love letter and Yasashii Higeki that stand out, but overall it's just a more stereotypical version of things they had already done before, without the guitar driven songs that were half of the Kuroyume genius. Not saying it's flat out bad, just poorer. Edit; in my of course highly subjective opinion. I think your recommendation of it above rings true.

Start from the beginning and work your way up to Romance of Scarlet. Then you stop, and repeat the last step. RoS was the epitome of their career. Shin left shortly after the next album, and their music never recovered.

Wah. This is pretty good! Tight and nice production. Singer has that Yama-B from Galneryus roughness going on. Keep at it!

Man there is so much harmonic content to take from MUCC. They are without a doubt the most prominent in the use of harmonic progressions in the whole scene. The use of diminished chords and wandering bass notes in this refrain is simply marvellous..

The last two chords that became somewhat a standard for MUCC after Gokusai came out. Sus4 -> Major Get's me everytime. They did wear it out a bit though.

Not really a fan of ranking albums, they all have so many great qualities.. Luna Sea had some of the most outlandish shit they ever made. It's got that raw, dreamy wicked vibe written all over it. Lots of dark green, blue, purple and black feelings, vines spiraling out from a naked body.There was no album as graphic as that one until Mother came along, where the production value and overall atmosphere tied together so perfectly. But if you look at pure musical content, I'd probably say that Image is ahead of the others. Anything after Mother would be my weakest pick. Sure, I love Style. It's like a musical representation of Sugizos magenta hair. LOVE&UNIVERSE all over the place. Just doesn't turn me on as the raw grit they churned out before. Personal favs: Face to face and Branch Road. The futuristic atmosphere in Face to face is just insane. It's also a real testament to where they perfectly combined artistic integrity with a new level of songwriting (eg. when the music seamlessly enchances the overall concept of the song). Branch road? Jesus, it's got so much shit going on. The dynamics between the different parts makes it feel more like a story than a rock song. Toppled with great counter riffing, Sugizos delaybombs, and the overall schizophrenic vocals. I'd say the vocals are the main character of the story. Switches between Ryuichi talking to himself and lashing out at the world builds a great dissonance that is later unleashed in the force of a thousand suns orgasm that is the chorus. It bursts out in some ambivalent scene of "fuck the world, but I'm going to be the one doing the fucking". Dat scream doe.