Dudemanguy

Utafumi is more like a throwback to their nu-metal mid period than anything else really. As for "Decayed Crow," it's alright. Don't hate it or love it. Definitely the weakest song on DSS for me though.

Awesome my CD just shipped so when I get it later this week, I'll report back and confirm for you guys that it'll be AOTY.

Awesome, I was hoping he would release more stuff this year and it seems I got my wish. The single from last year was really good, so I'll be all over this.

In all fairness, the keyboardist was literally arrested for committing fraud so it's not like they had much of a choice there. Anyways, their album from last year, Tears of Messiah, was pretty good and a return to the more old-school rainbow-style hard rock/heavy metal of their early days. Quite possibly the best album they've done in a long time depending on your metric, so I'm said to see Kuze go. But Concerto Moon has been a big revolving door around Shima for like 20 years now, so not much will really change in the long run.

I want to believe.

It's mailorder/live-venue only. You'll need a shopping service to get it. The previews did sound pretty good to me though.

Kamikakushi is out of print unfortunately. It's an incredible album though. I'm glad that MergingMoon finally got it together and released something new even if it's only a digital single. That short single sounds miles better than anything off the last EP. Hopefully this will lead to a new physical release sometime in the near future.

Album of the year baby.

Album trailer is out now.

I'm going to have to echo the disappointing sentiments here. The short version sounded like the song might go somewhere interesting, but instead all I got was U2. Well, at least it's better than modern day U2.

Hizaki will never be your "Queen of the Night."

Hizaki just announced an upcoming solo live (February 16) where he will be selling a new single "Queen of the Night." However, the single is merely being sold in advance (先行販売), so it should hit the usual stores sometime after that.

It's always hard to judge short versions, but I liked what it was building up towards at the end.

CDJapan is a just a retailer. So they would just take a typical cut that any store would take and then it goes to the distributor/label and all that business. I'm sure whatever the percentage is varies a bit from store to store, but it probably wouldn't be much different than any other shop (physical or not). It's safe to assume that a band with an official webshop would get a much higher cut from sales, but then again they could still have a lot of middlemen if the band is notable enough to require extra people to handle shipping.

Bands on major labels usually get a salary, so buying CDs from them helps keep the labels afloat and helps keep bands employed. The absolute best way is definitely going to shows and buying merch, but obviously that's not terribly feasible. But besides that, your best bet is probably just buying CDs and merch (new of course). It might not go directly to them, but in theory it helps keep the label afloat which in turn helps the band out.

Well the guest musician list just got bigger. Here's the new names. I'm pretty surprised to see one of the Gargoyle guys in there, but I love that band to death, so no complaints here. That's guest musician announcements 2 and 3, so there may or may not be more later.

All of their solo projects are way different than Luna Sea.

Bah who cares, I listen to them every time anyway.

Eh, it sounds too much like a DSS B-side to me. I never hated it, but it always just felt kinda "there." Both 'And Zero' and 'Tefu Tefu' are much better songs. I never understood why they put those two on the second disk.

For me, Kisou tries to be more aggressive/nu-metal, but it didn't quite make it there. So it's like in a weird middle ground, and I find the compositions there to be a lot simpler than the previous two albums. Still, it has some great tracks like 'Mushi' or 'Embryo.' I do actually like the nu-metal/j-rock thing Dir en grey had going on with Vulgar and WtD so both of those albums I find entertaining. Even simple stuff like 'Garbage' (insert the obvious joke here) is fun just for Kyo's silly vocals. Arche is definitely my favorite Diru album though. That one strikes a perfect balance between their latter-era heaviness, lighter ballad side, and their progressive tendencies. Yeah, I'll grant you that 'The Inferno' is kinda lame, but the rest I love.

You know, I can dig this one too. I'm pleasantly surprised.

Really? I find WtD to be a lot of fun. Probably in the middle of the road for me. My least favorite Diru album would be either Kisou (probably an unpopular opinion) or Marrow of the Bone (maybe more popular?).

The cover is pretty cool. I'm super pumped for this one. This is basically the only album left in the year that has a shot at taking AOTY away from the new sukekiyo. I also really love 'A Will' which I think is easily their best release since the 90s.

I sure am. I mean like Kamijo and happily bought the past releases. But I don't like him quite that much.

Very bold of Kiyoharu to go with an 8 minute acoustic song for his MV. I did end up liking that song though. I wonder how the whole album will sound.