Zeus

I don't understand what the point of forming a limited time unit is. Maybe someone can inform me what they have to gain from this besides publicity.

Her solo pop career didn't work so she's back to making rock music with the two most invisible members of the previous unit? So not surprised. I could tell for a while she was trying to make an exit from that stagnating band, but ironically her departure breathed new life into the unit before all the members went their own ways. I also thought "XYZ" and "good bye" were jabs not so subtly aimed at her, so I'm surprised anyone from that band was willing to collaborate with her in a new project.

Another chapter has been written and filed away into the ever growing library of visual kei history, so we resume our customary annual review of all of the great albums that saw the light of day in 2018. Unlike previous years, we elected to wait until the middle of January so the stragglers of the year had their fair chance to weigh in. This list is also not in any specific order, although DIMLIM's CHEDOARA deserves a mention for getting the most votes internally and therefore kicks the list off with a bang. Even in our most challenging years, there's always something fresh and new around the corner waiting to be discovered. Like always, this isn't an exhaustive list and plenty of the hidden gems slip through the cracks, so if you have anything to add to the list tack it on at the end so the entire community can find something new to enjoy. Without further ado, here are some great J-Rock albums of 2018. DIMLIM -- CHEDOARA @The Reverend @emmny @helcchi Sigh - Heir to Despair @The Reverend @helcchi Dir en grey - The Insulated World @emmny emmurée - lightless @The Reverend キズ - 「傷痕」 @platy Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - No New World @The Reverend @Zeus 陰陽座 (Onmyo-Za) - 覇道明王 (Hadou Myouou) @Zeus The GazettE - NINTH @Zeus グリモア - プシュコマキア @platy DADAROMA - dadaism#4 @helcchi @platy lynch. - XIII @YuyoDrift Thanks for reading!

You're not wrong. I would peg the growing interest in anime and Japanese culture to the late 90's and early 2000's. I was too young to notice at the time, but thinking back on it, it was my dad who introduced me to Dragonball Z. He heard about it from his coworkers, all about 30 or 40, so clearly its influence had infiltrated my country by the time I was 5 or 6. Visual kei jumped on the bandwagon a few years after that, because the first time I ever heard about it was in 1999, but it was defo underground at the time and in my entire life I only talked about visual kei in person to seven or eight people. Interest in visual kei spiked around 2003-2004 and reached critical mass around 2007-2009. These days, it's almost impossible to find new fans in the flesh. I won't even try to analyze the reasons why interest died off since I'm not certified in it, but what I can say is that at some point interest in Japanese music fell off completely. I have friends who will admit to watching anime, playing JRPGs, going to anime conventions and cosplaying, but not one of them talks about listening to the music. If I were pressed to give a reason for this, I would point to K-Pop. I know many a fan who jumped ship to K-Pop once the craze died down, and to be honest it feels more socially acceptable to like K-Pop than visual kei these days because one is more commercialized than the other. To J- and K-music outsiders, I can see how the distinction between "J-Rock" and "K-Pop" is irrelevant when they don't understand the words anyway, so I'd say that for many people K-Pop fills that musical niche for their interest in ~exotic Asian musics~ where J-Music should be. A lot of my fondness for this era is because this was the music I listened to in my formative years and I will always have a soft spot for it, but I'd be lying if I said 2008 wasn't the best time ever to be a visual kei fan. It was.

I still laugh at how I used to give this album to everyone to review. I've never written an official review of イリヤ -ilya- because the album is so hard to digest, every time I come back to it I find new things to like and new things to dislike. I simply enjoy watching people struggle to describe it. It's a damn shame that Mutyumu did nothing with themselves after イリヤ -ilya- . Everyone but the vocalist and guitarist left, and even if the composer is the same the musicians aren't, and the piano is one of the most prominent aspects of イリヤ -ilya- , so I think their 3rd album was going to suffer unless they found an equal or better replacement. They also have a bit of a X JAPAN thing going, with a revival of activities announcement followed by a lot of silence since 2013. This might be one of the last times we'll ever seriously talk about Mutyumu, so I'm glad @The Reverend was able to contribute a blurb. I also agree that given time, RENTRER EN SOI would have found their balance. I linked CRUSADE because it has the best balance of both of their sides. They have a few other singles of that nature too worth linking. BAPTISM and DAMNATION are pretty terrible though

While writing up blurbs for this list, we came to the conclusion that 2008 was a golden year for visual kei. So many good things were released or happening during that time. This took so long to come out because every time one of us was done, another person snuck in a blurb or two. If we didn't cut ourselves off, I'm sure we would have wrote a bit about everything released that year. I'm not expecting 2009's retrospective to have this many blurbs.

I hope I can hear this one day.

I didn't even know that rumor was a thing 😮

So I guess Ki$aki has that hu$h money, because it's been two months and I haven't heard anything.

Well we definitely know Natsuki is Mr. Avocado Farmer

Here is one way: 1. Start band and label. Apply for a loan to fund label. Can be bank, can be from a sempai, can be from parents, etc. 2. Budget real good. 3. Use some label funds for band activities. Use profits from band activities to pay back those internal loans. 4. Bust ass working hard doing your day and night jobs. If you do it right, you could earn back the money you put into your band to pay off the first loan, and then your label is ready for the next step. I suspect these bands that run their own label are also putting up personal money to fill the gap.

Let's also not forget about some more explosive outbursts like Ryohei from Kyogetsu. I wrote about it here if you want some more details, but safe to say that it's an open secret that going visual kei is a money pit and it can be seen as shameful to discuss it brazenly. Because I'm not Japanese, I took the time to convert the yen into freedom and equality units. MV ~ 500.000 ¥ / $4,400.67 / €3,882.55 Costumes ~ 700.000¥ / $6,160.86 / €5,435.49 Foto shooting ~ 100.000¥ / $880.12 / €776.49 CD pressing ~ 100.000¥ / $880.12 / €776.49 Recording ~ 100.000¥ / $880.12 / €776.49 Hair styling ~ 1x 20.000¥ / $176.06 / €155.31 Studio ~ 1x 10.000¥ / $88.01 / €77.65 Travel cost ~ 200.000¥ / $1760.59 / €1,553.43 Flyer/print ~ 100.000¥ / $880.12 / €776.49 Website 150.000¥ / $1,320.47 / €1,164.82 Total: $17427.14 / €15,372.22 Some of these numbers should be interpreted carefully. I added up all the values, so the true cost of hair styling and studio isn't reflected here because those are repeated over and over again. For the studio, is this cost per hour or per session? It's way more expensive if it's $88 an hour. I also find that the expenses for hair styling are pretty expensive relative to what it should cost, so I wonder if this is a compound cost or an estimation of some sort. I also assume somethings like flyer / print, CD pressing, and photo shoots include the costs not just to produce the medium but to pay for the services and distribution. Something similar for the website too; I doubt most of these guys are doing all the maintenance work for it, so they probably pay someone to keep it up for them. A thousand dollars for a website doesn't make sense. A thousand dollars to create an interactive and impressive website quickly is still too much. But to do all that and keep it maintained makes sense. Travel costs include not just plane tickets, but moving all of the musical equipment and paying the roadies to do it for you. I wonder if these costs are per band member or costs for all members as a whole, which could explain some of these high costs. I don't think this is everything, because I've heard stories about how bands have to front money in order to be able to perform. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard about it more than once, especially when bands have to front the difference if attendance was below projected amounts. There's nothing here about the cost to perform concerts or produce merchandise. And finally, I don't think the band is paying all of the costs, just a majority of it. So I'm comfortable saying that for your average band, the label would front about 30% and the band members together would front the remaining 70%. So the new adjusted total is: Total: $12,199.00 / €10,760.40 If I were to pretend that I was a visual kei musician, and I was in charge of budgeting for my band, and we had to make some hard choices about what we could afford and not afford, I'd honestly take a look at the hair styling and costume costs, the studio costs, and the photo shoots. I think the hair styling is egregiously expensive for no real reason, compounded by the fact that it would be multiple visits. I'd only get my hair done when I absolutely need to and show up to the studio and to record looking like a regular guy. I'd try to do band practice somewhere cheaper, because those $90 visits add up fast. Travel cost is non-negotiable. Photo shoots can double for both cheki and promotional materials, so I think that's the cost of doing business. The cost of the costumes is right about where I expected it to be if you budget for five people, and budget considering every time you record a new release you have a new look. But costumes put the visual in visual kei, so it is hard to argue to take them out. I honestly would have to argue if costumes should cost more than the music video, and would try to find some way to put even more money into those, because that also puts the visual in visual kei, and shoot for making less music videos overall if I can keep each one to a higher standard of quality. I honestly don't know how much of a presence a website would give my band at the start, and would probably double down on traditional social media tools at first to go viral and cheapen costs there, or maybe latch on to my label's bigger website and push that way. Or maybe both, because more exposure doesn't hurt and word of mouth is free. I'd also be the ultimate cheap and lazy bastard and press all my CDs themselves to start, and then distribute them at lives. Overall, I can understand a bit better how difficult it can be to get started if the funds aren't green.

SHHH! Don't you know that if you say a band man's name three times they can never return to the land of visual kei1?!?! In all seriousness though, -OZ- was one of those bands that I thought was at the "top" of the indie circuit. Learning that farming avocados is more consistent and lucrative than being an indie visual kei band man is a sobering feeling...

Not that I don't believe you, but I do need a source for this.

Despite the optimism in posts above me about this announcement, I'm less than excited. Netflix may not do as bad of a job as previous studios have when adapting anime to live action films, but the debacle with Ciri in The Witcher adaptation proves to me that they're capable of losing the plot. It's like the media doesn't learn it's lesson. I don't even care that Netflix is behind the helm. Time and time again, whenever they adapt an anime to a live action film the movie loses a lot of what made the anime special. I'm not just referencing Hollywood because there are plenty of Japanese live-action adaptations that suck too. It's the power inherent in the medium along with the ability to more easily suspend my belief. I've already lost my horse in this race because Hollywood adapted and defiled Ghost in the Shell. Watanabe better splurge on a katana engraved with the words "no cuts" to make sure Netflix gets the message this time, although I'm under no delusions that someone at Netflix won't find some way to defile the story and get fans pants in a twist.

Don't disappoint me guys.

I would have to agree. Are you counting the first time as "Diabolos" or the rerecording of "MACABRE"?

I'm split on this opinion and here is why. UROBOROS is a good album, almost god tier by Dir en grey standards, but that album also came out when I was in high school. It's been almost ten years (yikes) since UROBOROS dropped, and they've grown out of the proto-prog roots that they laid down on that album into a genre-defying juggernaut that escapes classical definitions. They already tried to go back and make it better, and that just made the album worse for a lot of fans, me included. They tried to one-up it with DUM SPIRO SPERO and that wasn't 100% effective. UROBOROS is up there with GAUZE and VULGAR for me because it's a point in their career that they hadn't reached up until that point and won't go back to, so I try not to get fixated on how "not-UROBOROS" one of their new releases are for me. I could potentially end up missing out on something awesome, like stalwart La:Sadie's fans who couldn't get with GAUZE, or visual kei fans who literally exploded at the announcement of six UGLY/VULGAR.

Maybe I'm getting old, but whenever I listen to this track at over 40% volume the high notes just become piercing and hurt to listen to.

There's a certain sense of irony in that NB went vk to get paid and they didn't get paid...

| Dir en grey's tenth album is something special indeed. Few artists can bring the scene together and elicit responses from everyone the way that Dir en grey can. They can make you pause your habitual listening routines to check out their newest single or album, even if you don't like them. This is because Dir en grey is one of the few bands where we can sense the progression and self-improvement from release to release. I don't think that Dir en grey aspires to impress anyone but themselves from three years ago, and now more than ever I see and feel a band that has graduated from copying trends to setting them. As a concept, and after listening to the album several times, I believe The Insulated World refers directly to them, their view on the world, and the inspiration for where the music they wish to create comes from. The Insulated World feels like a journey into oneself, and the album feels separated into two parts. The first half of the album feels like a turbulent descent into madness, while the second half feels like the madness has yielded to tranquility as the listener floats towards personal understanding. I prefer the second half to the first half. This is a far cry from literally every other album of theirs, where tracks were arranged haphazardly and the experience suffers for it. I can hear various influences from each of their previous eras and albums - some more than others - but one of the most redeeming points about The Insulated World is that it doesn't sound like anything in particular. In the past, I've felt that Dir en grey bit off more than they could chew, and failed to deliver on their own expectations. I felt this most when listening to DUM SPIRO SPERO, where the band used progressive elements for the sake of being progressive. The Insulated World has the progressive elements applied more sensibly, similar to ARCHE. Songs morph and change direction on a whim, but there are hooks and motifs that the band returns to that gives each song coherency. Vocalist Kyo reminds us once again that he's the king of vocal manipulation - just in case you had doubts - but he's embraced his mid range more. Focusing on the extremes of his vocal techniques leaves an immediate and lasting impression at the expense of it sounding very binary. I prefer the vocal extremes for specific emotional climaxes and using other vocal techniques for specific feelings at the appropriate times. "Values of Madness" is the best example of what I am describing, where we get screeching, rapping, singing, and more in a compact four minutes. The re-recording of "The Deeper Vileness" is another great example, and also highlights how well some of the ideas they explored in The Marrow of a Bone translate into their new style ten years later. Complaints about the terrible production job for the singles "Utafumi" and "Ningen wo kaburu" were founded and make more sense in hindsight, with the new versions sounding less congested. Die and Kaoru no longer compete with Toshiya for total control of the low end frequency, Shinya's drum kit sounds less robotic, Kyo doesn't feel tacked on top of the mix, and there's plenty of room left for the guitar distortion techniques and electronic samples to breathe. For the most part, I like the tone chosen for the guitar and the way everything comes together in each song, and I would rank this among both their best and least obnoxiously mixed albums to date. I wish they could get their singles to this quality. The Insulated World is not a perfect release. "Devote My Life" is not listenable due to the piercing, unrelenting tone of the guitar. Sticking it in the second slot does a lot to turn away people who only have once chance to give Dir en grey. They should have gone with a guitar tone closer to "Downfall". "Ranunculus", while a great song and a good note to end the album on, has an atmosphere which doesn't fit with the album. I get the impression this track was conceived either very early or very late in the production cycle, because it stands well on its own. I also am unable to find the hook in the album opus, "絶縁体" (Zetsusentai), which I find difficult to wrap my head around. They've done this style of track more effectively with "Vinushka" and even "Diabolos", and it doesn't hold a candle to the pure atmosphere of "MACABRE". Speaking of Macabre, I also find the new version of "理由" (Riyuu) slightly inferior to the original version. The cover of the song does justice to the original by not straying too much from the melody, but they reined in the emotion of the song and the guitar solo with only a cleaner sound to compensate, and the original version of the song sold itself on its emotion. They didn't ruin it, but they didn't improve it much. The new version of "鬼眼" (Kigan) falls into the same camp, but the much better production values edges it out ahead in the end. For the record, I much rather these safe reinterpretations than ones that butcher the song beyond recognition. These interpretations are subject to change as I spend more time with The Insulated World, and perhaps catch them live one day to experience these songs in person. Even a month later, I still think I wrote this review prematurely, as there are songs still growing on me and others that I am unsure if I like or not. I am pleased overall with how this album turned out, and I can see myself listening to this album in a few years without the songs wearing thin. Dir en grey did well, and this is an album I can recommend to both long time fans and the curious, but if ARCHE did nothing for you then this won't either. Support the artist! iTunes | CDJapan