TadakatsuH0nda

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE
 

He looks like an auntie. Honest mistake. 

This band and albums has it all. Early speed, visual metal, gothic, visual rock, heavy metal - everything what you need for an old school visual band. If someone likes this, they'll probably like more. 
 

Oh boy, where to start, just off the top of my head for VK stuff, D'espairsray, Deathgaze, Girugamesh, Deluhi, Anonymous Confederate Ensemble, -OZ-, Amphibian, Kuroageha, Awoi, Since1889 among many others. I wish certain visual kei bands didn't have such short runs, many of the ones above were fortunate in that they were around for over a decade.

One thing with Yoshiki, he may often be pompous and self absorbed, but I don't think he's an idiot by any means, and it would take a complete idiot to actually throw out/dispose of/lose such priceless master tapes as any of the X tapes are at this point, whether he likes the music still or not, so I've still got hope he's got those old X masters at least tucked away somewhere safe and is just simply ignoring them, which I'd be cool with. I just don't think he'd be dumb enough to throw that kind of history out, some of it's not famous, sure, but it's irreplaceable at the same time.

Ah, too bad it's a live version...
 
They had some pretty awesome tracks that they never officially released, and the few they did never were reissued at any point, Break the Darkness (they had two versions back in the day, both pretty good), Only Way, Tuneup Baby, Right Now, Stop Bloody Rain, Feel Me Tonight, Steal Your Heart, Lady in Tears, Install and even more than that. It's not likely to happen, just saying it would be incredibly cool if he even considered any of the above, since he's got so many old X songs laying around.

Yoshiki is actually insane. He's got a backlog of incredible and rare demo tracks, yet he keeps reissuing the same stuff on a yearly basis. Was saying on another site, the only appealing thing about this at all is the potential fresh remaster of Standing Sex, but even that might just be a live version, I can't even tell  what is or isn't a live recording on this messy compilation.

You are not a idiot  you just did not know the band ^^ 
 

Oops. I made a mistake. I'm so sorry, it's normal for me to accidentally assume a band mentioned here is Vkei. I'm an idiot.

I'm feeling this tbh
 
side A: 「Re:quiem ～for career～」
side B: 「 Re:tirement Age」
 
(guest dr.: Yoshiki)

these grandpas are gonna keep rocking until they fucking DIE & i love it

I know a bit about some other pre-visual kei movement bands too if the members of this group are interested.  I think it's just all really neat to learn about, and have researched for a long time about the various bands who helped to shape what eventually became the movement.
 
Oh yeah, here's a couple photos of Mephistopheles in the early to mid 80s, not sure how colorful they were, but probably something close to the image below this one:

 
And one of vocalist Rob in color:

 
Rather early X Japan looking, huh?

They actually were never very famous despite at times prominent members, but Japanese metal fans have known the name for years and years because they've performed live with pretty much every Japanese speed and thrash metal band of the 80s, right through to present day. They were even featured on a split album with X Japan once when they were both newcomers.

I've known of these guys for quite a while, just an early and interesting contributor to Japanese metal. Their closely related band Eraserhead was actually a supergroup featuring not only Rob from Mephistopheles, but Katsuji and Toshi from thrash legends Gargoyle, along with Akio Shimizu from the legendary Japanese metal act Anthem. They only made demos as that band, which were eventually remastered and reissued in a split with Mephistopheles in 2001.
 
I also think it's really strange that it took Mephistopheles 33 years to release their debut album, despite being reasonably known for a large portion of that, at least on the touring circuit.
 
Also included in Mephistopheles' former members is drummer Junichi Sato, who eventually found fame in a bunch of bands like Galneryus, he's probably one of roughly the 10 most prominent drummers in Japanese metal. Dude's pretty much legendary within the Japanese metal scene.

what the fuckity whos the guitarist thoooo

When Misaruka were brand new I thought they were going to progress and grow and actually go somewhere, but naw, they just kinda stayed put and their style never progressed at all really. Anyone else think that's a problem that a whole bunch of Starwave/Darkest Labyrinth's artists are plagued with? I at least tend to notice it with their bands specifically, more than a lot of other J-rock labels, not sure what's up with that, if they just aren't great at finding true talents or if the label forces these bands in a certain musical direction or if it's the bands themselves incapable of taking it to the next level. (I'm not saying all their bands have this problem, but like a horribly vast majority.)
 
Either way it's a lowbrow move basically threatening to call it quits if your show doesn't sell out.
 
 
Exactly. You could also say a legitimately talented band wouldn't run into this issue in the first place because they'll offer a product that people are actually paying to come see more than once. They're shooting themselves in the foot big time, when they didn't have a ton going in the first place, sadly.

Terra Rosa is one of my all-time favorite Japanese bands. Are there any fans of them here? I love Kazue Akao's voice. She just may be my favorite female vocalist from Japan. The Endless Basis is such a near-perfect album. My favorite of the Mandrake Root Records catalog. Masashi Okagaki is a master at the keyboards.
 

garden gnome-kei next

Just ordered these three:
 



 
Limited to 500 compies. 200 black and 150 each of white and orange. 22 black, 30 white and 23 orange are left. Be quck or be dead.
 
http://www.darksymphonies.com/thecrypt/shop.html

Make idol pop great again

I've never thought Toshi will come back to metal stuff like the early X classics and even as a guitarist, very nice to see it.

Yup! I'm glad Toshi is doing something good. These days I'd probably choose going to a Toshi solo gig over a X gig lmao. I also like that he works with guys in the current scene, that's pretty awesome. 

The thing with visual kei is that like many scenes it will inevitably fade in and out of popularity. Might it hit an alltime low? Sure it could, but chances are it would rebound in a few short years, just like how the musical styles they play fade in and out of popularity. I wouldn't be worried about it at all, heck, visual kei even met a similar decline in the early 2000s before exploding again.

One thing I love about MH is that all topics regarding X Japan always ends up with us mocking Yoshiki.

Ha! It like the man exists to make GACKT's shameless self-commodification look good.
Elsewhere, looks like someone got pissed about Yoshiki getting all the credit for X: http://hayashixdeyama.tumblr.com/