Mr Bacon

Is this their way of spelling Betelguese?

I don't know about now but back in the day (2004-2006) he composed like 90% of their songs, so I always figured he was at least able to play guitar. His vocals aren't bad at all, he uses a bit of autotune tho. He and Satoshi should do some harmony vocals.

Please rejoin Tokyo Heroes, please rejoin Tokyo Heroes, please rejoin Tokyo Heroes, please rejoin Tokyo Heroes, please rejoin Tokyo Heroes! He's such an amazing guitarist, a real loss for Sel'm. I hope he'll find something else(preferably... Tokyo Heroes).

Well fuck this shit. They just need to find themselves another guitarist like Iwan/John and have Rinda and Gokimi deal with vocals. Problem solved.

Half of it sounds like 2005-era VK, the other half like early 00s nü-metal. Not bad tho.

^That. Their last really good release was Too Fast To Die in 2009, and their last decent release was Breed of the Sun in 2010, everything after that has been pretty crap.

I watched the first season a few months ago and I found it surprisingly enjoyable. Not super great, but pretty entertaining. Guess I'll have to check the second season as well then.

Cool, I thought they had disbanded!

@Hizakami: thanks! So no tags whatsoever? @blackdoll: wow, great review there. Very inspirational. You sure have your way with words I see. Also this one doesn't count for the thread, sorry! Can't listen right now, so it's up for grabs.

^ 5/10. He's not a bad vocalist... but he always sings in that goofy voice, which just makes him sound ricidulous. This song doesn't showcase his vocals well anyway since the range is very limited and the melodies are pretty simple. If he'd sing using his normal voice, I'm sure he'd actually be a decent vocalist. http://youtu.be/jrQ_GXqu0Us?t=33s (how do I make a youtube vid appear in the post?)

In no particular order: Kyo (Dir en grey) - while his style isn't always to my liking, you can't deny that he's one of the most versatile and talented vocalists in the scene (I know, they're not really vk, but still) Rinda (Tokyo Heroes) - he has a voice that's very different compared to the "common" vk vocalists. He has so much power in his voice though, very underrated. Tatsurou (Mucc) - Very talented vocalist as well. I kinda liked his vocals better when he was still singing like he was a depressed madman, but still haha. Satsuki (ex-Rentrer en Soi) - This guy has a range, damn. Can go from very low to very high without any seeming effort. His notes are usually spot-on as well. Hizumi (ex-D'espairsRay) - While not as distinctive as the above ones, still an immensely good vocalist for vk-standards. Thought he deserved the mention.

@Zess: Also, pretty much everyone I know of loved Oberyn in the books. Even though he was in the story for a fairly short amount of time, he had depth that some other characters lack. Still I agree with the character building, it did help. Still, D&D unnecessarily fucked up the character building of both Jaime and Tyrion. Yes of course they can still set it right next season, but why bother when they could have done it this season, ending the season with both characters forcing to drastically re-evaluate everything they stand for. And no, they also don't need it to fill up next season, as there's still so much interesting stuff that happens in both their storylines in AFFC and ADWD. The filling up would only be nessecary for characters who are nearing their final chapters (Bran, Sansa etc).

^I agree wholeheartedly. I was so stoked for this episode, but in the end it was kind of a letdown. Sure some scenes were handled pretty well (Stannis the Mannis, Arya at the Saltpans) but the rest of the scenes just lacked something. BOOK SPOILERS BELOW - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

I've only been to Dir en grey and UnsraW. Dir en grey was musically good, but otherwise very boring. UnsraW was the other way round, haha. There's only 2 bands that have been to The Netherlands I wished I'd seen, are D'espairsRay back in 2006 and Mucc in 2007(when they still made good music). Other than that there's been not much of interest over here.

This season is the best so far. Amazing performances by so many actors(especially Peter Dinklage/Tyrion, Pedro Pascal/Oberyn and Alfie Allen/Theon). Can't wait for the last episode. I reaaaaaaally hope they include a certain scene (the epilogue of ASOS).

I get where NB are coming from, and I kind of agree with the comments in the first post. Let me first say that I used to download loads of music illegally, but since the advent of Spotify, that's become my main thing to listen to music. As for Jap music, I still mostly download. But... if I think a certain band or release is good/epic, I will buy the original. I have about 300 CDs, and loads of vinyl, DVDs, and casettes. I think that if you claim to be a fan of a band, you should support them in any way you can. Buy an album, buy a T-shirt, I don't care. If physical stuff isn't readily available, email them and you'll probably be able to work something out (I did this with Tokyo Heroes), or bring it to their attention that there's fans willing to buy their stuff in other countries as well. If not, platforms such as Itunes exist. You can't claim to be a diehard fan of a band but be unwilling to support them. A non-Jap band I'm fan of released 3 singles, all for $1. I bought each of em for $3-5(Bandcamp), just because I love their music and sincerity and want to support them. Each time I got a personal email back saying "Thank you Bryan, this means more to us than you think!" They make music for their fans, and if their fans support them, they give their personal gratitude in return. I agree with what Tokage said about music as a form of art. I have to add though, that many artists, and even mostly the smaller ones, also put time and creativity in the CD's artwork and packaging. If you just get the music, you only get 75% of the complete piece of art. Then again, I also agree with his remark about originality, haha. Oh and also, I'm pro-buying directly from the band, no intermediates. Tons of bands use bigcartel or bandcamp or their own webstore and sell CDs, downloads and merch through those channels. If you buy it from there, you'll know the money ends up where it belongs - in the hands of the artists. TL;DR I think you should support bands financially when you claim to be a fan, in any small way you can. I have no problem with downloading music to try it out, but if you like it enough to call yourself a fan, fuck'n buy it and don't be a pretentious freeloader.

That's a pretty cool setlist. Any news on what they are going to do next?

^Hah, that's amazing. And they sound better than a lot of serious vk bands as well, lol.

Hm, not as bad as I had expected. The instrumentals are okay, and the bassist has some cool stuff going on at times. And I can tolerate Jin's vocals so that's good. Songs sound okay, but don't do anything interesting. I'll try out some of their stuff when it's released but I'm still not expecting to be blown away.

I guess it started with anime themes back in 2005 or so, especially Naruto. Then in 2006 someone on a video game forum sent me some songs by Japanese bands and I liked them a lot. I think they were Cassis by The Gazette and Kodou by Dir en grey. I had no idea what the bands looked liked, and when I found out it kinda weirded me out. But then I started to appreciate it despite the looks and got into bands like D'espairsRay, 12012, girugamesh, Nightmare and so on. So yea, I've never been in it for the looks at all. Around 2011 or 2012 or so I started drifting away from the scene, only listening to a handful of bands, mostly angura. Still is that way, but nowadays there's less than 5 bands I follow actively.

Cool, looking forward to it. Production sounds less good than their last few releases but ah well. Really excited about the two re-recordings.

Time to get Oisuke back and get their act together!

Ohh hope he will get better soon. At least they got a good temporary replacement

I think he and Nachi got into a fight, since Nachi is still hanging out with Mukku and Mitsuru. Those two together were a great combination, but Cockroach just isn't that good.

Interesting tracklist! Some pretty old songs on there, 3 and 12. Hope they will be re-recorded. But most interesting is 7 which is an old WORLDisMINE song, really cool! Then again, there are only 3 new songs lol.