rekzer

DIMLIM:
Gt. Ryuya, Vo. Sho, Gt. Retsu
Support:
Ba. Yume (ex-Pisaro, Now in DIMLIM)
Dr. Hibiki (ex-A Ghost of Flare)
 
Set-list:
1. Birth
2. Innocent Passion
3. THE INVISIBLE
4. Limit of reverse
5. Age of lies
6. Destroy a desire
7. MASSACRE
8. 浄土の花
9. 記憶、紺碧の微笑み‬
10. 初潮
11. 虚妄の歌
12. PERSOALIT NONCONFORMIT
13. 「」
 
encore:
14. THE SILENT SONG
15. 塵外
16. ハレワタ
17. MASSACRE (Chorus)
 
 
This was one of my first concert experiences in Japan and it was one of the most memorable concerts I've ever been to.  The venue is Takadanobaba AREA and I must admit in pictures it looks tiny, but once inside it’s a lot larger than I expected. The venue is divided into 3 sections: the front, middle, and back. Of course, your boy here was in the front! There was a lot of guys at the live; to my surprise I think it was an even number of girls and guys. Walking into the live, there was a curtain raised with a projection of the DIMLIM logo and the sounds of baby’s crying and screaming. It was very fitting because I wanted to scream as well, I was thrilled to finally see DIMLIM live. The live started a bit late but once it began the projection went away and the SE track “birth” began. The curtain was still raised, but a light from the other side projected the shadows of Ryuya, Sho, and Retsu onto the curtain. They stood still until “birth” ended. A few seconds of silence passed, and they just gained life as they began playing “Innocent Passion
. The song began with the opening riffs, and once Sho gave his scream, the curtain was lowered revealing all of them. 
 

 
Everyone looked amazing, but Sho stood out since the paint on him was inverted from the paint he had on the MV for “THE SILENT SONG”. He had a white colored face with black details. He still looked killer. As they played, Sho hits all the screams, including the intense high-pitched ones. Most bands skip these types of screams, but Sho made sure he hit each one. Other noteworthy standouts are Ryuya and Yume (At the time he was in Pisaro but he’s now officially in DIMLIM). I was shocked at how skinny Ryuya was, even though he still looked great. Yume, well, he’s short. I’m not joking. He’s so tiny, he had a box next to him, that he would use to stand when he wanted to yell something or get the crowd’s attention. It was cute haha. Everyone was noteworthy because Hibiki (ex- A Ghost of Flare), despite not being in a visual-kei band, still wore eye shadow, did his hair, and wore a cool outfit. He looked wonderful. And Retsu… well he’s fucking beautiful, so nothing else I can say there.
 

 
They played a few more songs, but I was so unprepared once they got to “Destroy a desire”. A lot of the songs had dance moves that go with them, like fist pumping or waving your hands side to side, etc. (AKA Furitsuke). For the most part, it was headbanging. But for “Destroy a desire”, people started jumping side to side. They first jumped to the right and before I could make it and realize what was going on, they started jumping to the left (towards me) and I almost crashed in to one of the girls. Side note: Im 6’3” so I’m nowhere near little. I would have destroyed this girl. Luckily, I managed to jump left and join them.
After this they debuted the song 「」.It began with the whispers of a women and goes into a techno like rhythm. The pacing of the song is slower than the usual songs DIMLIM puts out. Its not the heaviest song, but there are some screams. My personal favorite part is the harmonics that Ryuya adds during the slow parts. It’s a really nice song.
 
To my surprise they played “初潮”afterwards. I was expecting this song to be their closing song, but I didn’t mind it. It’s every bit as beautiful and powerful live as I’d hoped it be. I gained so much respect for Yume because he owned that solo and overall did an awesome job. He even played it sitting just like Tsubasa (former Bassist) used to. Retsu executed the solo beautify and it gave me chills seeing it played live.
 

 
And probably the most fun I had was during the wall of death. For those that don’t know, a wall of death is when the crowd splits into two and gets some distance between them, so they can run towards one another. During “MASSACRE”, Sho asked us to split and so we did and as he was hyping us up I proceeded to taunt the other side haha (I flexed a bit haha). 
 
Unfortunately, I don't remember much about “Age of lies” and “記憶、紺碧の微笑み”. These two songs where part of the first live limited single so this was my first time listening to them. All i rember is one of them not being as heavy, so kind of slow. Wish I can say more but thats all I got.
 
The main set ended, and they played a short video. Sadly, I can't read Japanese, or at least all the Kanji that was there. There was a lot of clapping and cheering haha. The video ended, and the curtain opened, and the band stood before us. All the lights were off and out of nowhere Sho gave a powerful scream that began “THE SILENT SONG”. Sho had a podium in front of him like the one in the MV. It was painted black and had the DIMLIM logo sprayed onto it. It was a really nice touch and I wasn't expecting it. Sho sang the song with the podium. He would lean on it in order to get closer to the crowd and even shaking it to get the crowd going. Sadly, he shook it too hard and halfway through the song the podium fell apart. Sho tried to hold it together, but it collapsed, and all the pieces fell to the floor. Sho sighed but he laughed it off and continued singing. Staff stepped in and removed the pieces off the stage.
 
I figured that the end was near, and of course they closed with their debut song “ハレワタ”. All i can say is Holy Hell was it good live. The energy they gave off was incredible. They played and sang passionately and when they headbanged, everyone headbanged. The song ended, and I thought it was over. I was wrong, DIMLIM wanted to get us going one last time so they transitioned into the chorus of MASSACRE and made us do a wall of death again to end the show and we did. I taunted again hehe... and the show ended as powerfully as it had begun.
 

 
Bonus:
They have this thing where if you buy cheki, certain cheki will be marked with "Lucky" in Kanji. If you get a cheki with one of these written on them you can take a picture with one of the members. I bought three and got Luky hehe... I was thrilled, and I yelled a bit and some of the girls there game me a stink eye. You snooze you lose, because I didn’t see those girls after, so they didn't get lucky HAHA.
 
I waited in line to take my picture and once it was my turn I was really nervous. I went in the room and there they were Sho, Ryuya, and Retsu. I wanted to tell them something at least, so I told them I had come from the U.S. to see them. And that their music is super cool.
Sho nodded with his arms crossed and said "hmm”. I’m guessing that a good thing, Ryuya said "Ahhh". lol and hands down the best reaction was Retsu. He said in English,
"I can speak english a little bit.... Stay with Us!" I wanted to cry he made the effort to speak English for me and he did it so well.  I took my picture with Retsu ❤️ 
 

 
 
 

Sadly, it is not an hypothesis. I just casually  saw this picture posted on an audio-engineering Facebook page, and it comes in very handy:
 

 
As Saishu said, Shinya is playing the drums, but the hits are triggered. This can be done in real time or during the pre-mixing stage.  Also, keep in mind that most drum takes are edited before the mixing process: this means replacing bad hits with good hits, fixing playing problems or joining different takes (it's like copy-paste, but with audio). No matter how tight you are, some editing is going to happen. With triggering/sampling and editing, you get really tight and almost perfect takes, something that's really common in modern mainstream rock/metal music (hell, even the guitars are heavy edited...).
 
The best thing you can do in order to notice this is to listen to the song and just focus on one of the drums and try and notice how many different types of hits are there. I'd suggest to focus on the kick drum, which is arguably the most triggered drum ever. You'll notice that it always sound the same, thanks to triggering, editing and, of course, compression: the dynamics are (almost) dead.
 
This whole trend of using samples instead of real drums in rock/metal started in the mid 90s with producers such as Andy Sneap. For this kind of producers, the natural drum sound isn't enough to cut through the mix, specially with the mid-boosted guitars that became a norm in that era within the metal genre (especially on extreme metal). Thanks to this, 90% of modern rock/metal has triggered drums. Just check out any mainstream metal record from the mid 00s and you'll notice this. Since the end of the 90s, most metal producers started adopting this technique, and it became a norm in the industry (sucks to use that word to refer to something we all love, but sadly, music is a biggest industry). Add the 'loudness war' to the equation, and you have an stereotypical mainstream metal mix as a result. Of course, taste is everything: I sometimes enjoy it, because it makes everything sound clystar clear and perfect; sometimes, I want to hear something more natural. It really depends on the genre (for example, a Neurosis record with this kind of clean and sterile vision wouldn't feel right). To me, blending is the ideal, but it is very hard to achieve, especially on modern metal.
 
Back to Dir en grey, just look at what happened to 'Uroboros' (the original version): that's maybe the realest drum sound on a Dir en grey album to date, with either really tight playing and/or an amazing drum editing. For me, it is great and really makes the band and the album stand out from its contemporaries. For others, it's simply unhearable, and that seemed to be the opinion of the band, or anyone who manages/produces the band (record label maybe?). Thus, we have that remix/remaster edition of the album where every drum hit is replaced with mechanical and sterile samples. And don't get me started on the reamped guitars...
 
I agree: the Korn-like bass sound wasn't my cup of tea, but this new sound clashes with the bass-heavy guitars and makes it almost unhearable. Would love for the instrument to distinguish themselves from each other.
 
If comparing it to 'The Marrow of a Bone', yes, it is an improvement. The thing is that if you want the bass to have more presence, you need to adjust the EQ of the guitars in order to let it shine. This means enhancing the mids! Enhancing the highs/trebles clashes with the cymbals; enhancing the bass clashes with the bass drum, the toms and the bass guitar. In this mix, they scooped the mids and highs/trebles and boosted the bass, so it is natural that the bass guitar and the guitars' frequencies clashes, especially when using downtuned 7-string guitars.
 
The single version of 'Hageshisa...' has the best distorted rhythm guitar sound that the band has ever had, at least on their 'extreme metal' era. It just sounds really big and 'meaty'. Compare it to the sound the same song has on 'Dum Spiro Spero'.
 
That's an interesting theory! Dir en grey became a tight band during the end of the' Dum Spiro Spero' era. Shinya was, without a doubt, the most virtuous and tight member of them all. Toshiya followed closely; Die and Kaoru were really sloppy, and Kyo... Well, just watch the 'Uroboros -With the Proof...-' DVD (although in studio he was great!). The remix/remaster has triggered drums, reamped guitars and a clear sound that makes everything sound really plastic (which means getting rid of everything that is or sounds like a mistake -with the modern metal production we talked about before used as the standard-). I think they tried to match the quality of 'Dum Spiro Spero' and then failed at it. 
 
Regarding Tue Madsen, he's not one of my favourite producers: he's one of the many that jumped on the same wagon as Andy Sneap, but maybe a little more versatile. I'm thinking of nice sounding albums like Extol's 'The Blueprint Dives, The Haunted's 'Unseen' (I KNOW! But I really like this album...) and Meshuggah's 'The Violent Sleep of Reason' (especially this one, which was supposedly recored in a true analog way -I have my doubts...-). The only thing I cannot always tolerate is how mid-centric most of his albums sound, lacking some extra bass frequencies punch. This makes a lot of his recordings sound really thin. Thankfully, 'Dum Spiro Spero' sounds quite good, but the 'Uroboros' remix/remaster, suffers from that problem.
 
I stick to my theory: the band, being self-produced, may be to blame. However, I prefer them having a total control of the creative process and badly mixed albums than little to none control of their art and with masterfuly mixed records.
 
 
I totally agree!!! Shinya is a mystery to me. As fragile and graceful as he looks, sometimes it looks like he's hitting the drums like a bull! I really like how the band sounds live since the 'Dum Spiro Spero At Nippon Budokan' show. On that show and on 'Arche At Nippon Budokan', Shinya's drums sound great (a perfect blend between the real drum sound and the samples that are triggered live), and the hard panning of Kaoru and Die's guitars leave a lot of space for the bass guitar to shine (it is also a nice touch for us fans: you can really tell who is playing each part of the song).
 
I feel like on the 'FROM DEPRESSION TO...' shows they have become one of the best live bands in the world. They are getting tighter each day, have amazing setlist, are talented musicians, have good songs with clever structures and progressive elements and also are a really interesting band to watch perform. And most importantly, they sound REALLY good. To be honest, nowadays I prefer to watch the live shows than to listen to the albums.
 
 
 

From an audio engineering point of view (mixing/mastering process), there's a lot of things that I don't like:
 
-Drums have a lot of problems. The triggering is becoming more and more mechanic with every release. Just check out how the snare sample behaves whenever there are some snare rolls or fills happening. That's a really serious issue that almost every mid-tier triggering software can solve (even with Drumagog you can get a better and more natural snare sound). Beyond that, I really like the snare sample, much better than the one used in 'ARHCE'.  Bass drum is OK: I'm not a big fan of the 'typewriter ' sound, but it works on this song. Toms are the worst of all: they sound mechanic and 'out of the mix'. When triggering, and if going for a 'natural sound', one should always try and get the full samples of a whole kit. On this single, it feels like it doesn't belong to the same drum kit as the rest of the samples. Maybe the engineer was using samples of a kit that didn't have rototoms and ended up using that sample. Anyway, it sounds really out of place. Also, cymbals have no presence whatsoever: they sound really weak and I have the sad feeling that they are also sampling them! 
 
-Bass is barely hearable. Really weird: they dropped entirely the Korn-esque sound they had on the last previous albums in favour of a more regular sound. You can hear it "pop" during the choruses, but it sounds really bad. This is a real mistery: I wasn't a big fan of how loud and mid-fueled it was on previous albums, but at least you could hear Toshiya's amazing and clever bass playing. Here it is non existant.
 
-Guitars sound horrible. I mean, not as horrible as the mid-scooped guitars in 'The Marrow of a Bone', but they still lack energy and presence. It's like they scooped mids and highs/trebles and boosted the shit out of the bass frequencies with a multi-band compressor. That way, it clashes with the poor bass sound and causes the whole mix to bloate. The cleans in the intro, on the other hand, sound really good. Too bad the dynamics are horrendous...
 
-Vocals sound good; my only complain would be the wide-panned vocal scream in the section after the second chorus. They clash with the guitars and overpower the rest of the mix. It sounds really unbalanced.
 
-Dynamics are TRASHED. Chorus has no dynamic impact, only emotional one (which is good but not enough). The song sounds very linear: just check out how the intro creates anticipation for the main riff but ends having no impact. The lack of DR destroys the build-ups. I would love a good WAV-rip of the song to measure the dynamic range, just to confirm my suspicions.
 
-Overall, it sounds 'over-processed' and over-compressed, a problem that was already present on 'ARCHE'. The thing is, somehow, here everything sounds sterile and opaque. I'm no mastering expert, so I cannot really say if this is an issue that could be solved with just a better mastering. Mastering can do wonders (for example, I once worked on a record that had really poor toms that where miraculously enhanced with mastering), but I think 'Ningen...' is a real mess. I really feel the song should be remixed from scratch.
 
From a music production point of view, there's just a couple of small things I do not enjoy; keep in mind this are more personal:
 
-The transition from the verse to the first chorus does not work. It does not have flow and feels really forced. On the other hand, the transition from the verse into the second chorus is flawless.
 
-The vocal layering on the second bridge sounds really bad. Same thing happens with the vocal layering on the section after the second chorus. I applaud the audicity to innovate, but I think the mixing does not favor it. It sounds badly recorded and the metrics feel wrong. 
 
 
Don't get me wrong: I really like the song and I am very excited for the new album, but I feel like the band could do so much better in terms of production and engineering. I hope there's a lot of variety in the thirteen songs, just like on Arche; I also hope the final product has a superb production and not an average/mediocre one. 
 
 

The messy guitars don't bother me as much as the drums. They are awful, specially on Ash. Utafumi does sound a lot better live imo so Nigen probably does too.

It's the sort of loud, farty jumpdafuckup guitar wall of sound mallcore garbage that they've done lately that I can't stand, and the production just emphasises the fact and I'm praying it won't be too prevalent in the album itself. The shit they did to the remastered Uroboros tells me that someone, either in the management or the band or otherwise, suffers from an acute case of bad taste to which the only cure is death. They'd sound more tasteful recording everything through a xbox 360 headset 

Ima need you to delete this, dawg.
 
And as iffy as Ningens mix is, the album version, based on their track record will most likely sound worse. 
Never gonna forgive them for what they did to Rinkaku, Lotus and Hageshisa. 

Age isn’t always a factor. There are plenty of drummers that play way heavier and more technical stuff than Shinya that are in their 50s and 60s. He’s not a blast beat guy or a fast double bass guy. He’s better at grooves and using innovative tom and cymbal work. He’s awesome when he does what he’s comfortable with, but as long as DEG insists on doing br00tal songs Shinya has to adapt as best he can. 

This is not an exhaustive list of grievances, but it should do.

MACABRE
 
Why release one of the best ballads of your career in Ain't Afraid to Die, and then not include it on the album? Why does the album end with Zakuro and Taiyou no Ao, two of the most resident sleeper songs on the whole album? Wake is basically Luna Sea's Hurt. Why does the country bop Audrey get sandwiched between the prog behemoth of MACABRE and the thrash Rasetsukoku? Why is Deity four minutes long, and why does that minute and a half intro mean that Myaku has no intro or outro? Hotarubi is just boring. Where is children and why is it nowhere to be found on the album when that deep cut is better than most of the tracks I've mentioned?  
KISOU
 
Why is the production paper thin? THREE instrumentals? Really? It's there to hide how disjointed the whole album feels and it doesn't do a good job. PINK KILLER is a terrible way to end the album. And it's not even the song that's bad, just the shoddy execution of it. tfw Zomboid's remix is better than whatever shit stain placed second on the album.  embryo is snoozeville. I don't care how egregious the lyrics are, the rest of it is about as exciting as sleeping in a broken washing machine. Why are the best non-single tracks on the album not called Bottom of the death valley (24 Cylinders, Gyakujoutannou Keloid Milk) B-sides of the previously released singles? JESSICA comes out of nowhere and doesn't belong on an album so vulgar. The Domestic Fucker Family is just foochin' terrible and I don't think a re-recording could save that song, even if they went all in on the doom direction.  
I can go on and on with some other albums, but I think you get the idea.

For the last 7 to 8 years (probably starting with DSS) Shinya’s drums sound like they’re programmed. When you consider that it seems like he has a hard time playing the heavier and faster songs at lives, it’s likely that they use some studio magic when they’re recording. 

The DVD will be released on Sep. 28 and will contain the full live at Budokan that was held on Feb 2, 2018.
It will be released in 4 editions.
 
-Limited Edition-
Blu-ray + LIVE CD + PHOTO BOOK (120 Pages)  ¥ 6,666
DVD + LIVE CD + PHOTO BOOK (120 Pages) ¥ 5,555
*The CD will have 28 tracks.
 
-Normal Edition-
Blu Ray ONLY  ¥ 4,880
DVD ONLY ¥ 3,880
 

 
 
REGION FREE XD 
 
set-list for the live:
 
 

they may be being bitches and want to keep it a secret?

they're going to be opening for Satsuki's next EU tour
 
this is garbage. i'll go cry in a corner while listening to MEJIBRAY now ;-;
 

Everyone is gay, the end 💋

just for the record, there're people who genuinely stan this creature's vile tryhard recent albums:
 
and there are people who stan this:
but two former mediocre gazette copy-cat bandomen served you an ultimate 2018 bop and this is how y'all react?
 

 

they're going to be opening for Satsuki's next EU tour
 
this is garbage. i'll go cry in a corner while listening to MEJIBRAY now ;-;
 

I was going to say that they sometimes record a 90 second version of the song just for this purpose, but then I remembered we were talking about X JAPAN here and them recording and releasing anything is an accomplishment in itself.

Leaderboard Like I said in the suggestions thread :
 
 
The official MH Visual Releases Calendar is ow opened !
I will do my best for daily updates and feel free to add the missing ones .
 
2018
 
JANUARY 2019
 
FEBRUARY 2019
 
MARCH 2019
 
 
APRIL 2019
 
MAY 2019
JUNE 2019
 
 
JULY 2019

 
 
AUGUST 2019

 
 
SEPTEMBER 2019
 
OCTOBER 2019

 
NOVEMBER 2019

 
 
DECEMBER 2019
 
 
JANUARY 2020
FEBRUARY 2020
 
MARCH 2020
 
APRIL 2020v
 
MAY 2020

 
 
JUNE 2020

 
 
JULY 2020
 
AUGUST 2020

 
 
 
SEPTEMBER 2020
 
 
 
OCTOBER 2020
 
NOVEMBER 2020
 
DECEMBER 2020
JANUARY 2021
FEBRUARY 2021
 
MARCH 2021
 
APRIL 2021
 
 
MAY 2021
 
 
JUNE 2021
 

It's not happy, it's just shit... ;<
 
They had me on board again with The Perfect Nightmare aaaaaand they lost me again now, lol. This could still go either way.

Members
 
Genki (ex. Mejibray as Tsuzuku)
 Koichi (ex. Mejibray)

Youtube | Twitter | Instagram
 

 
 
 

I'm still unsure whether I should buy a ticket or not. 
I'm not a huge dir en grey fan and the fact Kyo can barely keep up his performance with this band puts me off. But I also haven't been to a vk gig in forever and at this point I wanna take what I get. (not desperate enough to see kamijo tho) 

I saw Satsuki do this in Helsinki and it wasn’t pretty

its just the singer singing over the studio recording, limited to one attendee only