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Seimeisen

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Posts posted by Seimeisen


  1. [header]MERRY - NOnsenSe MARkeT[/header]

     

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    [header]Rating: :_9/10_: | Who (or what) is MERRY? ... THIS is MERRY:[/header]

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    01. iNtO the mARkeT 08. Zombie Paradise ~地獄の舞踏曲~
    02. NOnsenSe MARkeT 09. Carnival
    03. 東京 10. Station 07
    04. 自意識過剰型木偶人間 11. 千代田線デモクラシー
    05. ZERO -ゼロ- 12. 梟
    06. 暗闇にピンク 13. Unreachable Voice
    07. Hide-and-seek 14. 群青

    If anyone asked me about MERRY, I would show them “NOnsenSe MARkeT.” This is the definitive MERRY album! Not only is this album representative of MERRY as a whole, it pulls off quite a few things that don’t commonly work in Visual Kei. From the very first tracks, “iNtO the MARkeT” and “NOnsenSe MARkeT,” we have: an introduction that segues beautifully into the second track, beautiful acoustic guitars that don’t sound too poppy and in fact, add to the atmosphere (You’ll hear more in “Unreachable Voice”), and we get some fine-tuning and maturing of their previous sound from (the less than stellar received) “Beautiful Freaks.”

    This album is full of throwbacks to their past styles, giving us some “現代ストイック” (Generation Stoic) vibes, a few “M.E.R.R.Y.” vibes, a little bit from “nuケミカルレトリック” (nu chemical rhetoric), and so on, while ultimately refining the sound of their previous effort. In Visual Kei, it’s not uncommon for a throwback or continuation to yield something stale, or perhaps “uninspired,” and perhaps that continued sound becomes another on the long list of (unwritten) definitions for that… “G” word (generic). But on this album, MERRY manages to show remnants of their past while keeping things fresh.

    In Visual Kei, it also seems uncommon for bands to modify a recent sound for the better. If you didn’t like “Beautiful Freaks,” do not turn away from this album. The songs on this album are much more interesting and engaging, and the overall “package” is more cohesive.

    One thing that contributes to the greatness of each song is the flow of the tracklist, and hearing each song in the midst of another. When I first heard “ZERO -ゼロ-” in late 2013, I completely dismissed it, despite instantly falling in love with the previous single “梟” (Owl), but hearing that song on this album made it a more enjoyable one. Although I will say, that pseudo-reggae break in the middle of the song had me cringing.

    Let’s talk about Hide-and-Seek for a bit. It’s got a ‘surf-meets-’60’s jazz club’ kind of vibe, with emphasis on the jazz club, all the way down to the way all the instruments were equalised in production (just for this song); it sounds a bit like a live recording that took place at a jazz club. The song is also a rare example of how you can create one song, that can remind the listener of another (SID’s “妄想日記”), without it sounding like a carbon copy or ripoff.

    Some more honourable mentions include the segment of the album from “暗闇にピンク” (Pink in the Dark) to “Carnival.” These are just damn fun songs, and overall give a similar kind of vibe. These songs are essentially the party of the album, especially “Zombie Paradise ~地獄の舞踏曲~” (Tango from Hell). After the party ends, you go to “Station 07” and take a train home… the rest of the album still has some energy, but it effectively winds down. And “千代田線デモクラシー” (Chiyoda Line Democracy) is just catchy as fuck, with the melody and that accordion.

    I am about to eat my words about one song…

    I thought that the album ending with “群青” (Aquamarine) was going to be bizarre, and leave the album unfinished. But when I read @*littlelamb’s comment about the song having a strong message to stay positive and hopeful, I kept an open mind. “群青” as an ending is not as bizarre as you may think. It does give you that sort of “to be continued…?” feeling, but it doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t leave you frustratingly thinking “where’s the last track??!!,” but instead, it leaves you anticipating MERRY’s next chapter. It’s saying, “this is where we’ll stop… for now. In the mean time, keep your head up!”

    Every time I listen to the album, it doesn’t feel all that “experimental,” but in hindsight after listening, there are quite a few things that I can think of that would count as “experimental.” So maybe this album does have those moments, such as the Halloween dance track “Zombie Paradise ~地獄の舞踏曲~,” and the vintage sounding “Station 07” - “千代田線デモクラシー,” but the album isn’t scattered, or disjointed. The album is very cohesive and the tracklist flows quite nicely.

    Honestly, I am highly impressed by this album, and am already considering it my favourite MERRY album. While I can’t say I’ve listened to a single album in their back catalogue as much as I have this one, I see this turning out to be their most memorable. If you want some material from a band that’s been around for awhile that can say “yeah, we still got it!,” listen to this album! If you’ve heard of MERRY, but haven’t really been engaged into their sound, listen to this album! If you’re new to Visual Kei, and wanna try out another cool band, listen to this album!

     


  2. I use CloudScrob for iPhone (iOS 7.1.2). It costs only a little, but has always worked perfectly for me. You just play your music for however long you desire (it doesn't matter if you are offline, it just caches everything you listen to like the Last.fm scrobbler), and then you can open the app and upon launch it will track all the songs listened on your Apple device, and scrobble them. No difficult settings, just simplicity. I use the 'confirm scrobbles' option, it's just there in case you want to manually delete entries from the shown list. It's also useful if you are afraid of losing connection while the data is loading — meaning you would lose your scrobbles.

    I was really considering using CloudScrob, as I like the idea of confirming before scrobbling, but I've read around that it doesn't scrobble multiple plays of the same song (I think iOS 8 users are the ones having this problem). I know you're using iOS 7, but have you had this issue?

    GENERAL UPDATE: I paid for the full version of QuietScrob, which works very well, but I cannot use it anymore due to my iPhone not recognising certain artist name changes. So, unless everyone could vote for these changes (D機関D機関, R指定R指定), I will have to let the last.fm desktop app handle all my scrobbles for me.

    For iPhone users who are not having metadata-related issues, I personally recommend QuietScrob.


  3. So, the song's about wanting to kill "musicians" who are only in it for the money.

    I think a good way to phrase that last line could be:

    Why does this remind me of you...?

    You just live to turn major label* music into money... it's you... it's you... it's you...

    I would still word it a bit differently if I were writing this to be sang as an English version of the song, but I think this still works. It's not 100% literal, but as a fluent English speaker, I think this would be the most "natural" way to phrase it.

    *major label is what I took from "mass produced" - makes more sense to me when discussing music; something synonymous with "popular" could also work?


  4. I learned of AvelCain's existence through Shimizuya Records' YouTube channel while browsing Lycaon videos. Looked at a few more videos of them, then downloaded their self-titled album, and now I'm attached.

    I discovered D'espairsRay, Opeth, and Fragments Of Unbecoming through the iTunes store; not sure what I was looking at that led to either band.

    I cannot for the life of me remember how I discovered Plastic Tree, I just know that I downloaded their 梟 single and was hooked. I also can't really remember how I found out about the GazettE, although I'm sure YouTube had something to do with it. Nor can I really remember how I discovered In Flames or Katatonia.

    I discovered SUICIDE ALI and 彩冷える-ayabie- on edohsama. I discovered DIAURA and umbrella through uploads here on MH.

    R指定: I first read about them on Shattered Tranquility, checked out something of theirs from mid 2010, didn't care for it. A year later, I saw the music video for mental≠help on edohsama, and from that same place, I downloaded their 毒盛る single and FELL THE FUCK IN LOVE with that fucking awesome song!!

    ...

    That's all I can think of.


  5. ^ Well... that sounds a bit complicated, but I may try that app out of nothing else I already have works.

    Tomorrow on the drive to school, I might try out Ecoute's scrobbling, although I'm sure it won't scrobble anything when/if I drive through a dead zone (no cell reception/4G/LTE/etc.).

    I also e-mailed the developer of QuietScrob about my issue with picking up play counts from my computer. He wrote back with a few options to manually deal with it. Also, the app doesn't seem to be automatically scrobbling in the background.


  6. Looking up Scrobblt...

     

    you should just be able to download the official last.fm app on Iphone and it'll scrobble what you listen to while you listen to it as long as you are connected to the internet... or at least that 's how it works on android, I'm assuming it's the same on Iphone.

    Does anyone know if the official app will scrobble in the background while I use a different music player app? The last.fm official app is hideous.


  7. Not sure how many people here use iPhones, but...

    I recently signed up for last.fm, I'm currently getting used to how things work with scrobbling and all. One thing I'm concerned about is scrobbling with my iPhone. I don't really like how the desktop last.fm app handles scrobbles from devices, it seems to double play counts (this BUGS the shit out of me) and will also timestamp repeated plays of the same song as the same time (therefore, I cannot tell which plays are duplicates, ugh).

    I recently tried QuietScrob, which lets you un-scrobble songs, but it also takes play counts from my computer after synching (I'll listen to music on my laptop, the songs scrobble, I sync my phone, those same songs scrobble again after launching the app), so I might be ditching this one. I also have another app called Ecoute, which is a nice looking alternative to the generic iOS 8 music player.

    I've been looking around the app store trying to find scrobblers (and music player apps with scrobbling), and I really don't have the time to download every single app, try every single app, delete them all, and ask iTunes to give me my money back for all of them, and so on, and so forth...

    So here's where I could use some help, to all you iPhone and last.fm users:
    Are there any scrobbler apps you use that you can recommend? Has anyone tried alternative music player apps with scrobbling built in, such as Ecoute or SmartPlayer?

    Do any of you even use scrobbler apps? Do you just let the last.fm desktop client deal with everything and manually go through and delete duplicate scrobbles?


  8. TYPE A (1,080yen) will include CD (1 song)+DVD (including "九尾(kyuubi)" PV & making), TYPE B (1,080yen) will include CD (1 song)+DVD (including "九尾(kyuubi)" multi-angle PV), TYPE C-G (540yen each) will include CD (1 song)+booklet (different member ver.), and TYPE H-J (540yen each) will include CD (2 songs with different track 2) only

     

    each type will enclose different subscription ticket

    This just went from fucking stupid to fucking confusing... hold up...

    ...

    Oh wait, I got it now! TYPE H,I,J are the only ones with bonus tracks, and buying them all will total ¥1,620, which is roughly the cost of one type of a previous single, so that's not bad! Total of four tracks being released, like most BP records singles.


  9. I recently learned that eve didn't compose any of the songs from the 蛇と姑獲鳥 single.

    I guess he took on composition duties as of the 月蝕 single.

    蜷局 - xxxxx

    蛇と姑獲鳥 - 霞-kasumi-

    懺悔、寡黙ナル君ニ••• - 楓-kaede-

    籠目歌ノ呪縛 - 霞-kasumi-

    ×月×日、××××× - xxxxx

    source: music-book.jp

    Also, 籠目歌ノ呪縛 is one of my absolute favourites from this band.


  10. Can't say I really miss eve because when he was in the band...their music was more bland and repetitive than it is now.  *gets shot*

    :o

    ...

    That's all I can say...

    But those clean vocaloid vocals on 【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】【L】 made me wanna vomit and run off a cliff. Literally the worst vocals I've ever heard, and not even in a "charming visual kei" kinda way, but in a "cover my ears, they're being raped" kind of way ... were fucking annoying. But other than that, the harsh vocals were nice, and the music itself was well composed, leaving me optimistic for what eve has next for AvelCain. I'd like to hear karma's voice on Lilith (with the beep-boops taken out, too).


  11. You can laugh at me all you want, but I really like GALLOWS; I think it's a great album, I was totally psyched since the previews went public, I did not feel let down, and I do NOT regret buying it! Although, I will say that the Engrish can be quite embarrassing at times...

    Also, kind of random, but I think EXODUS should have been a full-length album, instead of making it a mini with all those singles released beforehand. I think EXODUS works better like this:

    ・EXODUS

    ・I'm sick b'coz I love u (2013)

    ・ASHES

    ・BALLAD

    ・HIDDEN

    ・VANISH

    ・CRYSTALLISE

    ・THE MORNING GLOW

    ・BE STRONG

    ・LIGHTNING

    ・INVINCIBLE

    ・NIGHT


  12. Kiryu always have been at the forefront of multi-type fuckery, haha.

    I'm interested to see just how different the 10 types will be.

    I don't think it's just a 己龍 thing, I think it's a BP records thing. I know Royz does this shit too. When their CORE album was only 2 type, I was genuinely shocked lol.

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