geist

8 minutes ago, Saishu said:

Production was fine up until Adoratio. 

That explains a lot because I listened back to Adoratio the other day and was like "what the fuck is this terrible production?!". It seems like whatever project Kyo is apart of, he mandates that his vocals take precedent over everything else to such a drastic degree that the music sounds muddy in deference to the vocals. 

I can't even count how many exceptional guitar lines were completely buried into the mix.

sukekiyo's audio production is pretty bad in general, and not many of these songs are jumping out to me. Some of the heavier samples are interesting but bland VK shit.

A live report that's 12 paragraphs long and only spends 6 paragraphs on the show. You know you're attending a VK show when food and the pre-show line antics make up a bulk of the review.

Well hey, at least Kyo looks like he's having fun.

14 minutes ago, Komorebi said:

Not so sure about the others, but pretty sure 9GBO and Deluhi are still  two of the most missed bands around here.

Many of the bands I listed are still greatly missed by the users here, including myself; but being missed by 10 people on a Japanese music forum is almost as obscure as it gets. That further highlights my point that there's a trend among VK  bands where their first batch of releases are met with heavy enthusiasm but that enthusiasm begins to fade as the band continues to release music to the point of disbandment for failure to turn a profit, or for becoming musical frauds like the "Crunkcore" phases of Sadie and OZ.

5 minutes ago, chipathy said:

Fell off the face of the earth? Pretty sure each single has done better than the previous one

You misread what I wrote. I didn't say kizu fell off a cliff (well, maybe their production did). I was commenting on other bands in the past  who had similar hype surrounding them but never developed into lasting bands.

22 minutes ago, saiko said:

I'm curious about what bands have you seen falling after proving they are "good".

It's not about being "good" or "bad", I was speaking exclusively about fan interest and hype in that part of my post. It's a symptom of music in general (i.e. "flavor of the month" bands).

Here are the bands at the top of my head who had similar initial fan hype (especially here on MH) but faded away whether it was disbandment (9Goats Black Out) or releasing god awful music (Girugamesh, Sadie):

9Goats Black Out

BIS

Dio - Distraught Overlord

Eight

Kannivalism

Sadie

Girugamesh

Screw

Eat You Alive

UnsraW

OZ

Deluhi

I'm sure if I had a comprehensive list of bands in front of me I could have picked out several more; but those are the ones that instantly come to mind that we've seen come and go over the years, all of whom received strong fan interest/support in the early days -- especially here -- and then quickly faded away.

I can't stand the guitarist's knock-off Angus Young look, the production is terrible; but for a young band they have some good ideas even if all the songs are starting to blend together and sound rather similar.

I'm curious though, how many bands have we seen just like kizu who promptly fell off the face of the earth after bursting on the scene red hot? Countless. They show promise; but so didn't nearly every other band like them. 

If Deluhi is getting back together that better mean they intend on writing all new material as well. 

Listening back to their releases recently, a lot of it feels incredibly outdated. Good music, definitely; but it fits that late 2000’s style that would sound out of place and uninspired. 

Damn, Kyo is taking this whole "Mike Patton" thing to a whole new level. I'm curious if Mike Patton even knows who Kyo is, and more importantly, if he's aware of Kyo's love for him.

EDIT: @0:58 in the video clip it looks like someone's playing a Schecter 8-string guitar?????

I enjoyed their cover of Ghost Rider. That's a song that really sounds great in a modern alternative rock context.

I’m eyeing NY and already got 2 tickets; but it’s not definite. Should be a great time regardless. 

Chances are they're also dubbing guitar tracks at their lives too. I haven't watched the live performance yet; but having only one guitarist means some of the guitar harmonies they do in the studio can't be replicated without guitar backing tracks. That's a bit discouraging. 

Sometimes it feels like this band has a little too much polish; but their sound is on the right track.

EDIT: yep, they're using guitar backing tracks too. gross.

2008-2009 was the peak of my fandom and marks the point I started listening to more japanese bands outside of Dir en grey and the Pillows. This is when I got into secondary bands like D'espairsRay, Girugamesh, MUCC, and Rentrer en soi. I felt like the VK scene was strong with these bands; but they didn't last long. Sadly only a couple bands survived, and even fewer have anything worth listening to nowadays. 

2007-2008 was the peak of the VK metal sound, and 2009 marks the the decline of that style as bands like MUCC and D'espairsRay release albums like Kyuutai and REDEEMER which are noticeably weaker than the material that came before and terrible bands like Sadie start popping up to cash-in late on the late 2000's metal trend in VK.

Showing up late to the party I have to say these guys are pretty cool. Leda is an exceptional guitarist.

It's funny watching all of these newer VK bands, and some older, getting into that "Djent"-esque rhythm playing that every heavy VK band seems to be doing now to varying degrees of success. 

As a new listener, Kizu reminds me of new GazettE mixed with OZ.

Hello, everyone. I was looking for more Japanese bands like:

Dir en grey

GazettE

kizu

OZ

lynch

There's a whole laundry list of other "heavy" v-kei bands I've listened to (Deathgaze, Girugamesh, Sadie, 12012, Mao's new band, MUCC, D'espairsRay, Rentrer En Soi, Nega, UnsraW, DIO, Nocturnal Bloodlust); but found most of them to be pretty lame with the exception of MUCC and RES.

Thanks!

Pretty decent stuff

34 minutes ago, cvltic said:

this is the only good thread on this godforsaken website

this tbh

I really love how in keibetsu the main riff has subtle changes between each verse and completely changes by the end of the song. Very similar to The Inferno in that regard. I should just put those two songs on repeat for the rest of my life. 

30 minutes ago, blacktooth said:

I haven't seen the making of footage yet, but are they using 7506s?

I believe it’s the MDR cd900st, they have a red tag on them. I’ll double check later today.

Coincidentally the GazettE use the same headphones. I found out the specific model because Ruki posted a pic on Instagram and I did some basic consumer research on them when trying to find a pair of studio headphones for myself. 

I chose Sennheiser’s lol

tbh I think any complaints about the albums production has to do with...no joke...the studio monitors the band was using. I think the album sounds good; but watching the making-of I noticed the monitoring headphones they used are these super dry Sony’s that nearly every Japanese band uses to mix. 

This specific model of headphones are known for being “dry” and off putting to first time users. I’ve used them before and they take a while to get used to. 

Perhaps there were issues in the mix because the sound they got from the studio headphones was ultimately different than what we’re hearing. 

Just a fun little conspiracy I’ve had lately. 

I've got a review for you guys:

It's good

9/10

6 minutes ago, Ro plz said:

Friends, we need to discuss how perfect that Kiri To Mayu live take is....

 

It sounds so fucking CLEAN. Shinya really did a great job here. I thought he fucking killed it in the DSS Budokan performance but here he sounds wayyyyy more comfortable. 

 

And the fact that Die let Kaoru do the solo without joining in just makes the track sound more fuller. They need to do this for Uroko as well cuz it calls for the rhythm Guitar section to be played while the soloing is going on. Toshiya alone doesn't cut it. 

 

The whole performance just ROARS. YES. YES. YES....I AM SO HAPPY. 

There was a very very small hiccup in the timing midway through; but other than that it was damn near perfect. The band sounded HOT in 2018 apparently, which is extremely encouraging because I remember hearing performances from around 2013 - 2016 and found them to be horrendous. 

Man, and Toshiya doing those screams on Different Sense? Fuck.

3 minutes ago, Seelentau said:

and outright fetishizing the band members.

You leave me and Papa Kaoru out of this.....