Seimeisen

[header]MERRY - NOnsenSe MARkeT[/header] [header]Rating: | Who (or what) is MERRY? ... THIS is MERRY:[/header] 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!

Did you get these from heresiarchy.tumblr.com? S/he has rules about leaving credit: http://heresiarchy.tumblr.com/about So make sure you leave a naming credit, and links. Otherwise, glad you posted these.

If I don't care about having posters or polaroids, do I still love my fuckin' shit noodles? #philosoraptor

If you're asking about the pluralisation: I find grammatical errors to be funny. At least in the case of Japanese bandomen making the errors. If you're asking about the bonuses: I'm guessing they will be handing out free goodies (like band photos, polaroids, stickers, postcards, etc.), and I don't care about them, honestly.

I saw 無料配布 (free distribution) in the red text and thought "oh SHIT another live limited CD NOOOO" - then I saw 無料配布特典 (free distributed BONUS) and thought "whew... no shits given" Also, they pluralised noodles... not sure if it's as funny as WE ARE VERY FUCKIN' SHIT NOODLE, BUT...

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.

Yes

Well, okay then! xD I'm certainly intrigued to hear the rest of that song.

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: 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?

...... uuuuuhhhh... yeah. 宏崇 and 楓 look kinda cool. But good fucking lord, 七星!!

Wow, okay, so glad I don't follow these guys anymore, or I'd be furious about these releases being live limited. And by the way, even the most popular of VK bands will occasionally give us the live limited middle finger.

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.

^ 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.

How are you liking Scrobbl? Does it work well? It's actually made by the same people that made SmartPlayer, which I'm thinking of downloading (but it's $3, seems a little much).

Looking up Scrobblt... 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.

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?

This is me: http://www.last.fm/user/Seimeisen