gret

Am I missing something or did they MISC.alculate and it got leaked?

Looks like Amazon Japan employees have a lot of CD burning to do

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the hillarious pinned comment the band put in the section of the video: 
 
"Let's think about the "ESSENCE"".
 
I want to take Retsu seriously, but they guy puts it challenging. I don't know if it's his awkward use of English, his insistence on the matter in every place of his social media,  or both.

HOLD UP!!!
 


 
Are these fuckers just burning files onto a CD-R?!

It's sho's voice and singing style.
 
I was being half-facetious in what I said, because if they say they're aren't VK anymore, then who am to say otherwise? But that doesn't change the fact that that singing style is endemic to VK.
 
What about you? Why do they no longer fit the criteria in your eyes?

I dunno guize, to me it's still the same band that just decided to go in the indie rock dezert direction but just math'd up the song structure and riffs and jammed as much material in the four odd minutes as possible. I think in this case all this talk about whether it feels like its all there or that it's a mess or whether it has soul or not is just nonsense. I understand if someone thinks all the time signature shit and transitions are in bad taste, but at least in vk that's pretty novel. The chorus still 100% carries in the entire thing and that could've been in their old songs just as well as in this one. 

Definitely beats Lime's English from black rain lol

A easy example about how the looks don't necessarily reflect the person of a visual kei artist is the usage of the hakenkreuz by the earliests bands. We don’t see as much nowadays, but the SS caps always appears, sooner or later.
Of course that there was some classic japanese punk nationalism in some bands here and there, but core of V系 was about shocking after all. So, the imaginary of the nazism is aesthetic, therefore should be used. 
 
As @薔薇の末裔 pointed out, understanding Kabuki is a good way to understand this theatrical musical scene. 
 
Kabuki in its first days was a female theater, a more accessible branch of Noh. But it was just too sexy for that confucian society. “A woman's place is in the kitchen”, said the Shogun (or it was my dad last night?). And then, the boys took the place of the woman, doing woman roles. But the boys turned out into fuckboys. “Notto disu shitto agen”, said the Shogun. And then, old man were doing woman roles. “Hmm”, long and deeply said the Shogun. Keep in mind that everyone was killing everyone in the past sengoku century, so the Shoguns could not fuck around (ha).
 
“Ok, ok, And so what?”. Well, since being really sexy was not an option, the onnagata dudes started doing their own shit to emulate the woman sexyness. First come the fancy wig, then they started showing some little skin and so on. Little by little there was no more “man” or “woman”, but onnagata. A woman that no other woman could be. 
 
At that point, Kabuki without man doing female roles is not Kabuki. Visual kei without man doing female roles is not visual kei? I don’t think so, exist†trace showed their shit and we digged it hard. But I would say that is highly expected to see a man doing female roles in the visual rock scene. D’s “Ouka saki some ni keri” is my pick for today. The contrast of Asagi manly vocals with his woman clothing is a perfectly example of why we love it the way it is. They do it with passion (or for money), and we love them for it, not because their sexual preference.
 
The whole pv setting is a love letter for their culture. And it is just one example, there is so many other bands with pvs with that scenary (and probably there is a “something-kei” for it too). The pompous and bold Glam Rock found it’s home in the japanese costumes and evolved into the coolest thing.
 
To be deeper into to sexuallity stuff we could talk about how Japan society potentially repress the sexual preference of their people in order to have things working “in the right way” and how the west really needs to “talk about it” and not let the individuals be themselves without pushing some agenda into your fuckin throat so it’s fuckin hard to understand these japs using lipsticks just because they like it, but that stress me too much so fuck it.

I think the reason the musicians don't talk about it much is because they're not thinking about their sexuality. Their look is a costume, just like other performance arts have costumes. Through western perspective it's easy to analyse and put gender roles and other analytical concepts to it, but I don't think the majority of vk performers thinks about what wearing make up and feminine clothes means to them on a gender transgression level/ as an extension of their sexuality. It's simple as "as a chef I put on my white apron" "and as a member of kiryu I wear full make up and sometimes a skirt. " of course there are queer members out there who probably enjoy the freedom of visual expression in the scene but we don't know for a fact who and how many, after all, sexuality in Japan is a taboo subject that can only be broken for the sake of fanservice bucks, horny fujoshi and temporary high school exploration storylines (hello shoujo ai). 
 

Kaya's the only queer person in visual kei

It might sound weird from a western perspective, but visual kei is like the straightest and most homophobic music scene in Japan. We tend to look at visual kei with western eyes and mix its cultural aspects with things that belong to the western culture. Fanservice and provocations used for shock value put aside, the androgynous aesthetics of visual kei band rarely expressed anything related to gender identity and especially sexual orientation. 
After all, it started with people like X Japan who admittedly were inspired by glam rock bands and way of life, which I would find hard to connect to sexual orientation. Visual kei early bandomen were mostly chinpiras, bosozokus (bikers) and the likes. They really incarnated the somewhat glamrock aesthetic of riding bikes getting drunk, banging girls, etc. Of course X had their own decadent/romantic taste that made them different, and a lot of influences changed the scene over time. However, visual kei is still remains 99% driven by social outcasts looking for pussy and very rarely by something else.
In Japan we also have onnagatas, who are kabuki actors specialized in female roles that are again 99% straight. Bandoman with feminine looks call themselves onnagata, not josou (crossdresser), implying that the cultural source behind their looks is not connected with crossdressing but just playing a female role in a band,  but again this something that might be hard to completely understand it taken outside of Japanese culture. For example Izam, the king of all onnagatas, married more than once and has more tha one child, and outside of his role in Shazna he rarely did anything ambiguous, just like the kabuki onnagatas out of stage. Both media and fans are everything but respectful of privacy, but I've rarely seen Japanese articles or message board questioning bandomen sexual orientation. That's because the number 1 reason people do visual kei is because the girls like it (well, liked it, I am not sure this is the trend with young girls anymore). 
Soft Ballet/Ken Morioka are closer to Soft Cell/Marc Almond so I would not even count them as visual kei even though they had some influence on it. And of course, there are exceptions as you mentioned. The chinpira bandomen of the 90's almost extincted and younger generations bandomans are usually anime/game otakus. They grew up with different influences and values, and it would make sense if the current incarnation of visual kei instinctively appealed to more people with sexual orientation/gender identity concerns, especially after Japan started talking about these issues in a less obsolete viewpoint.

Forgive me but I don't see what's so special about "What's up?". Sounds like a bunch of half realized ideas spread too thin over odd time signatures to me. The chorus is the only remotely memorable part. I've basically checked out of the scene and am coming fresh off CHE DO A RA so I'll ask one more time: which one of these members had the breakdown and decided to go j-indie?

the guitaristé

Appreciating the song more with each listen and man, Sho is pretty much the best vocalist the scene has produced in the last decade, he is improving so fast

They dezertified themselves but at the same time got more wanky, and it works. I don’t know if I will care about an album of that but they definitely did not embarrass themselves. A bit worried about the other songs but this one is just as good as anything they did before imo

Not really sure how y'all could enjoy tracks like Rijin and Vanitas but somehow hate this. Sure they're emphasising the mathy elements more while downplaying the heavier side somewhat, but it's hardly a complete 180 from their last couple of releases or anything.
 
Anyway I'm basically a math slut so I'll let this song have its way with me. All hail visual math kei etcetc.

After listening to the previews, I’m not so worried about this album being a flop. ‘Do’ was my favourite track from Kidoairaku and I do like that these tracks follow a similar formula. However like I said earlier I wish there was still a hint of heaviness spread out here and there. Lament is probs gonna be my favourite track I can feel it, I don’t feel like ‘What’s up?’ should’ve been the song that got an MV 

Well still buying the album so the boys can eat

The unpredictability of this band is what i fucking adore.
 
This new direction wont be for everyone of course and honestly im amazed this band is still going. They've lost 4 different members by now and dropping the vk aesthetic is a huge move. The band doesn't care about following formulas and this song really showcases that. 
 
They aren't afraid to try weird shit and even without screams you can really hear sho's voice give it all hes got. I wont lie i was hoping for a lil roar.
 
 
And ofcourse Retsu's playing is nothing to scoff at hes really bringing out bunch of different techniques. Remember hes compensating for another guitarist. Hiroshi does a solid job; in final chorus he pops off with those crashes and i love that he didnt overly use them throughout the track.
 
The build up really makes the final chorus worth while. 
 
It's not for everyone i think everyone has the right to like it or hate it.

If it's written miscellaneous I pronounce it as that. If it's abbreviated to Misc. I always pronounce it as 'misk' 😅 I'm sure I'm not alone on this one. 

ex-DAMY Vo.椋  (Ryo) solo project "鴉-カラス- (Karasu)" has formed.


 
http://karasu-web.com/

RxG are confirmed blink182 stans.
 

I'd rather a 1:30 track than something that descends into annoying beep boop madness to fill up space. 
 
Veredict is: 8psb only in micro doses. There's a couple of genuinely catchy tracks in... Richardland... But they don't make up for the rest of what resembles a [redbull addict] 15 year old gcse music student's portfolio

Hizaki has opened his Youtube channel!
 
Back to Nature PV making video:
 
"Sky Falls Down" live video:
 
Super cute comment video with Hizaki and Iyoda Kohei (The Genius Orchestration) plus live footage
 
btw fuck you spotify for that fucking typo

pedophilia is cancelled 🙌🙌🙌