ShanethVarosa

Outstanding. Im really into this band recently. They've caught my attention something fierce.

Oh my god outstanding. I can't... I can't even react big enough, these sound fantastic. Even with the poor quality I think they're really gonna be stunning in full glory.

Awesome, I've been loving his solo stuff. I just hope at some point I can hear the live only single released back in may! haha

What a bizarre track list. I'm very interested in seeing where their sound goes this era. I haven't liked much they put out but I have a lot of respect for these guys so I'm gonna check it out.

Versailles is/was way more thematic than HGP. Their music has much more to it than HGP's, but I think Versailles insists on itself more than HGP does. So as to say, not every single HGP song is going to be about generally the same thing. One could take that as either a good or bad thing, I like both bands a lot but I prefer Kamijo and Versailles to Juka and HGP but I would definitely want to hear Juka make a comeback. In any case, I think the most interesting thing would be to repurpose HGP songs for Versailles and just call it Versailles because that's literally what it is. All the same members. And when HGP was most active it had 3 of the original members of Versailles anyway. So at this point it is literally just splitting hairs.

| Another effortless masterpiece from one of visual kei's brightest musicians Hizaki has been an absolute fixture in the Visual Kei community for quite a number of years. Spending some time with a number of small indies bands up to his totally-solo EPs "Dance With Grace" and "Maiden Ritual", and his Hizaki Grace Project albums; continuing on with big-name bands Versailles and Jupiter and now back to being temporarily solo: Rosario is an opus of Hizaki's decades-plus knowledge of the guitar and melody combining technical skill with the most beautiful of melodies and the heaviest riffs and beats. It's no secret that his greatest skill is in songs like promo single "Grace & Dignity". In fact, if you had to pick a song in all the songs he's ever composed and performed, "Grace & Dignity" would summarize it effortlessly. Utilizing a mixture of guitar solos and dual-guitar melodies with heavy beats in the background and graceful arpeggios, you have all you need to know about this man's career. But why stop there when you can listen to 13 more songs of it? In all seriousness, about half of the album can be blown through in about ten minutes. Any long-time fan of the man will have heard songs like "Race Wish" on at least one other release prior to this one. I, for one, cannot believe it's actually surfaced again. The rerecorded version is as good as the original with the key elements still intact. The same can be said for recent Jupiter songs "Rose Quartz" and "Church Candle" which show totally opposite sides of Hizaki's ability. Where "Rose Quartz" is actually pretty much an advanced version of "Grace & Dignity", "Church Candle" offers a softer side of Hizaki that is reminiscent of the "Calm" number from Curse of Virgo a few years back. Not so much a dueling-guitar battle, but a single guitar playing a single melody that is both beautiful an captivating. Some Versailles songs even make an appearance: "Silent Knight" and "Desert Apple" also show the same level of contrast in Hizaki's abilities being that "Silent Knight" is incredibly hard-hitting (like "Rose Quartz") with an insane amount of energy and "Desert Apple is slightly less exhilarating, but not quite a ballad. A mid-tempo song with riffs that are incredibly catchy (For example, you find yourself humming the melody because there are no words to sing along to). Those songs out of the way, there are actually a couple of songs that can be considered transitionary or possibly filler, whichever term you prefer. "Eien no Tomoshibi" and "Elizabeth" are both not particularly enthralling, but not altogether bad. "Eien no Tomoshibi" is just a lighter more ethereal version of "Church Candle". One guitar playing a soft, subtle melody that transitions between songs. "Elizabeth" is far more powerful and uplifting, with an anthemic feel that doesn't actually give a lot of credit to Hizaki's guitar skills, but more generally as a composer. One of the key differences that this album has compared to a lot of Hizaki's other compositions is that not all of the songs are incredibly lengthy and showy. "Fly Through the Air" is a pretty good rock song that doesn't insist upon itself, but doesn't do a ton to stand out either. "Beating the Sky" must take it's name from the fact that it's backbone isn't melody but rhythm with a pulsing beat like a club song. "Presto" is one of the best songs on the album and it's less than 3 minutes in lengths, apparently it's a cover of a Vivaldi song. Who knew Hizaki would actually do covers of classical music. The remaining songs have left quite an impression on me: one good, one bad, and one incredible. The good: "Dark Classical", a song with a strong beat and heavy guitar interpolated with melodies that only Hizaki can pull off. As far as original compositions go on this album, this goes the farthest. The bad: "A Ray of Light", while not being an altogether bad song, was just far too.... much it was five minutes of the same theme that was used in the single-guitar, low-tempo ballads "Eien no Tomoshibi" and "Church Candle" but without the drama and emotion of either. A perfectly fine tune, but I did find this one to be a bit insistent upon itself. As though it were saying "Listen to me, I demand that you listen to me even though I'm not that special." Finally, the incredible: "Rosario". The title track has elements of every great song Hizaki has ever composed with the melody of "Created Beauty" from Versailles's self-titled album built right into it. While it has only been a week and I need to digest the song more, one can tell from first listen that a huge amount of thought and planning needs to go into creating a 10-minute epic without words to keep it entertaining and meaningful. It's clear that this was meant to be the title song all along. In short: the album was a huge success and really let Hizaki indulge himself and his fans in his ability while separating himself from other musicians so that if it isn't your thing you can simply bypass it. Another potential upside: Now that he's gotten this out of his system maybe Teru can compose more Versailles songs. Support the band! CDJapan | iTunes

This album is automatically gonna be better than The Others because it has Afraid to Be Cool and Raise Me Up which I liked a lot, but these other two previews have been garbage. So we'll see what the rest of the album has in store, but I have barely any hope left for him.

The previews are fine, but like everyone seems to be saying nothing amazing or great or different. I've always liked their music for like background noise....

Phoenix Rising is kind of a cliche after like a major event in a band's line up. But whatever, I'm sure it'll be good. Especially with Leda, who is incredibly talented (albeit not quite Anzi's level)

Dig it very much a lot can't wait super happy omggggg

What the FUCK this is is worse to me than Girugamesh's disbanding. Oh my god I can't even believe this they were my favorite new band.

So they did perform the new songs! Excellent. I'm actually very impressed with this set list there are songs I really didn't think they would do. But im glad there's another live coming up. And hopefully an actual release... Or a show I can go to .... Soon!

I'm into it. I I dig the album art a lot!

Yo this is excellent

Are Ai no A Capella and Parfana new tracks? Awesome to hear he played Addict, it's one of my favorites.

SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!! This is was exactly what I hoped to hear!!!!!!!

EXCELLENT!!!!

I find it cute that Zin is holding a one man live but ... I don't know he's not Kamijo and everyone knows that.

Definitely not complaining here, they could have pulled an X Japan and remastered the songs or some crap but they rerecorded them all AND are giving us two new songs. This excites me.

They always take the best pictures! Ugh I love them so much.

Three pages of conversation over 6 months and yet somehow there's no real information about the album. Not commentary on you guys, just how silly it is for a band to say oh yeah we're gonna release something eventually with no details

Uuuuugggggggghhhh that sucks. I'm really getting into this band they're so talented the way they are but I hope the next guitarist is as good.

YES!!! I'm so excited. The last two singles I really enjoyed. Plus Asagi's solo work has been great. Very pleased with this news.

The same Ken Morioka who produced some of my favorite Kaya solo songs?? He was so talented, what an incredible loss to the music industry. RIP.

| A fitting conclusion to the Moon Saga arc. It has been around 7 years since the king of visual solo artists has released an album. Granted, that album was basically a singles collection, but I digress. This would be enough to excite almost anyone, especially a hardcore fan of the man who worked with some of the most legendary visual artists. Gackt is one to focus a lot on themes in his albums and over the course of his decade-plus long solo career he has created three albums with the moon as the theme and primary focus. Beginning with 'Crescent' and followed up with 'Moon', he brings us the final installment in this series, 'Last Moon.' A pretty stellar thematic series of albums and other work, including the film "Moon Child" with Hyde from L'Arc~en~Ciel and VAMPS! The album is supposed to be set in ancient Japan and the music and related videos have presented that visual quite well. The lead single, having been released 9 years ago, was named 'Returner' and utilized some of the musical stylings from earlier songs such as 'Mind Forest' and definitely continued this theme perfectly. Other singles also brought out the traditional Japanese elements including hard-hitter "斬 ～Zan～", mid-tempo ballad "暁月夜 -Day Breakers-" (Akatsukizukuyo -Day Breakers-), and over-the-top dramatic masterpiece and album-closer "雪月花 -The end of silence-" (Setsugekka -The end of silence-). Even some of the new songs fit in with the elements of composition including "花も散ゆ" (Hanamo Chiyu), "傀儡が如く" (Kugutsu ga Gotoku), and "キミだけのボクでいるから" (Kimi Dake no Boku de Iru Koto), thus making the album largely cohesive and consistent. The remaining songs, while either catchy and fun or dramatic and emotional, don't fit with the theme of ancient Japan. "P.S. I Love You" is romantic and displays incredible vocal prowess but is clearly based on the 2007 film of the same name. It's B-Side "Ride or Die" conjures up the images of modern motorcycles while randomly selected B-side "One More Kiss" deserves no place on this album. These songs both helped and hurt the album at the same time. For example, I'm not sure why a song like "舞哈Baby!!" (Wuha Baby) and "恋のFriday!!!" (Koi no Friday) were included in a concept album as they're clearly just pop-rock songs, but they did help the album from being too much of the same thing. Otherwise, the album is phenomenal and one of the best albums I've heard this year. It proves that Gackt still has vocal ability like you wouldn't believe. I just truly hope this isn't his last musical effort.