ShanethVarosa

Artist: Hora Album: Cocytus Score: EDM super producer, Hora, is one of the most unique figures in the Visual Kei scene today... And has been for over a decade. Where most visual rock stars compose songs that are largely based on electric guitar, bass, and drums; Hora only uses his homemade synthesizers to create some of the greatest dance music you'll ever hear in your life. While he prefers to remain as obscure and indie as possible, if he would open himself up to a more global market he would surely give acts like Tiesto and Afrojack a run for their money. /p> Over these past 13 years, Hora has composed around 45 songs for darkwave/trance duo Schwarz Stein; but a staggering 119 songs for his solo career and all while using vocals so sparingly one would wonder how he could keep it so constantly interesting.... The short answer is that it isn't always interesting, I'll admit. Being a huge fan since day one of Schwarz Stein, I also follow Hora's and Kaya's solo activities quite closely and have always listened to Hora's solo albums no matter how disappointing they ended up being. However, it seems that he managed to reignite the fire of his solo project around 2 years ago when he released Cocoon and then kicked it up about 70 notches for Desolation Beauty last year, ultimately resulting in this year's splendid Cocytus. This is the first album of material he's produced since Schwarz Stein's official return to the scene and it shows. This album is significantly darker than his last one and utilizes the same sort of synths that were featured in Schwarz Stein's most recent single "Sleeping Madness" and by that I mean the beats are hard and fast. The album opener is fairly typical for Hora, unfortunately. Very melodramatic and slow and ultimately just very repetitive. The song drags on way too long and doesn't provide the listener with much intrigue. Along with Underwater and Winter Blood, this song can be skipped to prepare yourself for the real meat and potatoes of the album. The second track is one of the absolute best Hora solo songs I've ever heard. "Frost" has the dramatic Hora flair that one must appreciate in order to be a fan while also delivering one of the hardest beats of his career. Please, please listen to this song above and you will not regret it. Following up this magnificent song is the second best song on the album, "Babel," which is considerably darker and deeper than "Frost." This is also his first composition in a long time that utilizes his harsh vocals. The only lyrics on this song, or the whole album in general, are "Let there be light." Title track "Cocytus" is a lot like album opener "Chamber of Fear" in that it's rather long and drawn out and does sort of the same thing continuously for no real added effect. Additionally, the use of string instruments becomes quite gratuitous when you're trying to listen to a dance album, but I digress. This is all just opinion, of course. The use of string instruments is something I've appreciated over the years and can see why people would enjoy their existence, but sometimes it's just too much. Tracks 5 and 10 are essentially a two part series known as "Pray to God." The former song "Doom" has the same spacey quality as "Without Words" but in a much lighter atmosphere. The beat takes a while to kick in, but once it does it's actually quite fast and played under the melody of the piano to produce something very lighthearted (ironic for a song called "Doom," right?) The second in the series, "Heir" has a very interesting introduction. It's super glitchy, meaning there's no beat but the synths sort of skip around and sound like a broken video game. The second synths kick in not long into the song and create a continuation of the spacey vibe that "Doom" sets up. When the piano starts in this song it immediately echoes the piano of "Doom" and finishes out by adding a slower version of the beat in its predecessor. Other extremely notable tracks are "My Vendetta" and the aptly-yet-reduntantly-named "Without Words" which are heavy/dark and mid tempo respectively. "My Vendetta" is the shortest song on the album and packs a decent punch in just 3.5 minutes... Which is actually a great thing considering if it had gone on too much longer it would get into the too-repetitive category due to the fact it doesn't change it's beat that much and is sort of a lot of the same sound. "Without Words" is more elegantly composed and utilizes more than one sound to make it's point. While I could see how someone could describe it as "lengthy," it has an ephemeral and spacey quality that hasn't quite been prominent on Hora's albums since Prominence in 2006. All in all, this is definitely among Hora's best solo works. I highly recommend it as a general piece of music and find that it could likely be appreciated by all walks of life as it isn't too intense in any one genre at any one point. That being said, I do hope that Hora's and Kaya's priority over the next few months is to create a full-length Schwarz Stein album. I find that Kaya and Hora work best when they're together even though their individual talents are something quite formidable. It's like combining the two best things to make something even more impressive. Hora is the chocolate to Kaya's peanut butter or the Sonny to his Cher. They're best when together.

Thanks ender-ender and CaRaN!! It seriously does look amazing and when the color comes early next month it's gonna look.... God I can't even imagine.

Stage one of my half-sleeve complete!! It's Versailles-themed. Six roses, one for each member. Stage two will be the band name on the other side of my arm and stage three is an incredible color scheme. What do you guys think?

Don't know how I feel about this. I'll likely download it to see how it sounds, but I'm assuming all the songs are going to be rerecorded as covers. I'm probably more excited about the Lareine covers because I'm sure they'll sound different for the modern era, but also excited for Versailles as they're my faves. I would also have to agree with Peace in that Destiny is such a snoozefest that anything else would've been a better choice.

Definitely male, but I don't have any logic or reasoning to back it up other than most females in VK I haven't totally loved although I'm certain I haven't listened to enough females in VK to make an informed decision. However, when it comes to American rock/pop or even J-Pop/K-Pop I prefer female vocals.

@Pretzels lmao, no I don't think there's any Asian artist I hate as much as Mariah Carey. But in re m-flo.... People don't like their new sound as much? I'm crazy about EDM and I'm not like... a superfan or part of their "fandom" or whatever, but I do really REALLY like their dance music. It's so much fun.

Get ready for my most biased post yet: Versailles's Rose: Simple, elegant, gets the point across while also being a little dark and totally Versailles. This is easily the best of their single covers. I have to say I agree with Zess that I don't typically enjoy seeing band members on the cover of their album, but I think Versailles does it well.... Or maybe it's just because I am actively in love with them.... I don't know. What I DO know is that I love Rose's cover. Versailles's Versailles: Even if it isn't my favorite of their albums.... (It's my second favorite) the concept behind this cover is incredible to me. I like that it literally is a depiction of their "last supper" for what is allegedly their final album, but I also love the light sacrilege that is insinuated by putting them in a scene that's religious in nature and have them eating roses. Also, big ups to the alternate cover art for keeping it hella simple and still pulling off elegance. Madonna's Rebel Heart: Cue a small bit of promo for an album that dropped recently, but really though. This cover art is pretty cool. She doesn't look stunningly beautiful or anything, which I believe to be part of the point. It's just... Artistic, weird, over the top, nonsensical, and most importantly Iconic. Div's Zero One: Last one for now because I have to take a shower, but my love for this album art goes no further than the fact I fervently believe it to be one of the best albums of all time and it's a really pretty birdy.

*inhales* I was born ready for this topic. My most favorite J-Pop artist is Koda Kumi, but if you factor in K-Pop artists with careers in Japan then it becomes BoA. Either way, these women are everything to me. They're basically the asian versions of Cher and Madonna to me, they don't come more important. In terms of either of their most recent releases: BoA's pissed me off that it was all singles, but the quality of the music was still good (In re: Who's Back?) Kuu's was decent, but far from her best work. Most of it is likely to grow on me if I let it. (In re: Walk of My Life) Anywho, otherwise it's mostly K-Pop acts with careers in Japan that I like.... Girls' Generation I think I actually prefer in Japanese and 2NE1 gave it their best effort, but they need to stay in Korea (or do an English album.... maybe as long as CL gets her solo debut first and within the next 4 months). Additionally, I am freaking in LOVE with Square One and beyond m-flo. When they got all trip-hop and EDM I think they really found their sound. Although I've always liked Verbal's features with Crystal Kay and BoA. Oh and Crystal Kay is pretty good too. Not consistently good, by any means, but she has talent. Rule Your World is my JAM. Namie Amuro is someone I got into fairly recently, I like nothing before Uncontrolled and even on that I only like In the Spotlight. I loved Feel and her song with Jolin Tsai is phenomenal. My appreciation for Ayumi Yamasaki goes as far as her Inu Yasha song and maybe 2 or 3 tracks from her dance album last year. I ALWAYS listen to her albums to see if I like her more, but.... I rarely, rarely ever do. Other artists with Japanese Pop careers I listen to on a very passive basis: After School Kanon Wakeshima TVXQ 4minute

Based on these previews alone, I feel like I'm going to like this single more than the last one. It is extremely reminiscent of Megaromania. Obviously they would have that sound as Sui was the singer for Mega, but this is the most Mega sound they've had since te change. Anyway, I'm excited to hear the whole songs. I like the second one the most I think.... We'll see next month. But I'm genuinely excited for this one.

I liked the Ether preview, but the other two were kind of boring to me. Hoping the full versions will be better.

This actually all sounds and looks really great to me, I've genuinely liked all their releases since and including Nil, even if they weren't great all the way through... So I'm sure im going to really like this as well. Everything seems on point and well thought out. I'm really here for this era.

Great review, I'd have to agree. I'm actually going to write my official review for VKH-Press later today and I feel like I have a lot to consider with this album. On it's own, the album is decent and solid. But I feel like when you compare it side by side with Zero One it just... Doesn't measure up. I mean... First of all, I just really don't understand what Taste of Life and Golden Kinema Gekijou are doing on here, of course being that they were released before Zero One and didn't get updated at all. That being said, I LOVE ToL, but I would even say give Aozora ni Parachute a chance to be on an album or something... but maybe that's just me. Additionally, I didn't even like GKG, but I did love B-Side "Pieces." So again it was disappointing to me that GKG was on there instead of maybe Pieces.... Anyway, HK was a great single and so was You and Butterfly Dreamer. I feel they all have legitimacy on this album. As well as PoV, but I didn't care for that song as much, it just felt like a generic rock song without much feel or impact. And Justice I couldn't place for the life of me until I realized it was the B-Side from their Sid tribute single. After all is said and done, there's 7 new tracks, of which about 3 of them are genuinely remarkable but maybe thats just me. Ai no Uta was kind of boring and the fact that it was so short felt like it was an intro that didn't even set the general mood for the album. Story was straight up boring and Rage/Secret Night were both high energy and enjoyable, but again when compared to what I know this band is capable of they just don't leave a mark. The best songs are Wing to Heaven, Dearest, and Stars. All of these songs are genuinely uplifting, feel-good, spring time songs which are produced well, composed perfectly, use the electro-rock influences (such as heavy autotune) that I come to expect from them at this point. They really present this opposite viewpoint from Zero One which had darker moments, this album focuses more on the light which is good too... But I just don't know if they could really ever top Teddy, Asterios, Cocktail Color, Vanish, and Hotarubi.

They actually all sound really nice, can't wait to hear the whole album.

Hopefully it's something genuinely interesting.

Have to agree with the Kanon Wakeshima comments, I was really impressed with this album generally speaking. The two more electronic tracks were a huge surprise to me and being a big fan of electronic music it was something that made me very happy. Sansukumi was probably my second favorite on the album overall, my first being Geijutsuka no Kawaii Souzoutachi. Additionally, the title track Tsukinami and the second single Killy Killy Joker are close to the top of the list. As for the Div song, it's flawless of course. I haven't had the extreme pleasure of hearing Secret in full yet, but that was one of the tracks I was looking most forward to and it didn't disappoint, but it almost doesn't even sound like them. I'm trying to think of the band this song reminds me of, but it isn't Div. Anyway, it's great and I look forward to hearing the whole album.

I'm pretty confused by most of this, but what I do have to say is both of those songs are incredible in their own ways. I think I might prefer Diawolf's a little more, but both are solid and promising.

Well I don't really know if New Sodomy songs were going to be the biggest draw of this tour, I'm actually glad there's only one. Disappointed that I don't see any of my favorite Lareine songs there, tho I do really like at least two. Anyway, I'm happy there's more than two Versailles songs but I was dying to hear Sympathia live... Maybe he'll play it in New York? Or is this the set list for the whole tour? As for his solo songs, my absolute favorite one is Throne so I'm extremely happy that it's there.

Wow that actually is more old material than I think I originally thought. Is the music solid? Sure, but they really could've put more new content on here.

Yikes that is expensive. It better seriously come with something unbelievable. I obviously won't purchase that, but I'm always excited for new Gackt. I just wish he'd put out a god damn new album.