Zeus
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Monochrome Heaven Top 50 Tracks of 2015
#50-#41
The celebration isn't done just yet!
Consider this a mixture of Best New Tracks and the traditional Top 25 List. While ORZ was busy putting together the former list for you, we realized that there are plenty of artists who released amazing music this year that may not necessarily be albums. At the end of the day, we decided to compile a list of our Top 50 songs of 2015. I'll post ten a day, starting today with number 50 and ending with 41. Check them out and let us know with you think. Feel free to comment and recommend your own picks as well!
In addition, a special thanks to our guest contributor @emmny for his contribution to Develop one's faculties!50. "Seven Deadly Sins" by MAN WITH A MISSION
Man With A Mission are showing more maturity in their recent work. "Seven Deadly Sins" follows the trend with more depth both musically and emotionally than we've been privy to in the past. But that's precisely what makes it great. The band can't be all piss and vinegar all the time. The lyrics are easily relatable as they focus on the every day struggle with life's problems of all kinds, and often having no way to make sense of the chaos. But the song has an overall optimistic feeling that carries through, and takes a listener up to find inner strength.
- @doombox
49. "SPiCA SPHiA" by パノラマ虚構ゼノン (XENON)
XENON was one of my random downloads this year and what a surprise it was! The title track of the single "LIQUID" is heavy and features some cool instrumental parts, but ultimately suffers injuries sustained from out-of-the-blue chorus syndrome. This B-side is the more balanced composition. While I'm not sure if XENON is actually signed to Danger Crue or not, this track reminds me of DIV, featuring pleasantly spacey synths and a healthy mix of heavy and mellow pop-rock sections. Especially considering DIV's underwhelming album, Secret, I needed this! If you've been sleeping on XENON, this single is a good place to dive into their discography, but @TheStoic also recommended to me their first album, Ultima--check 'em out!
48. "Setting Sun" by 疋田哲也(Tetsuya Hikita)+NIL
Back in 2012, 疋田哲也+NIL released their first album for free through the Japanese electronic netlabel Bunkai-Kei records, and now they've hit the major league by releasing their latest album "Ferry" on PROGRESSIVE FOrM (the label that houses Japanese electronic greats like AOKI Takamasa, Ametsub, Geskia!, and more!). 疋田哲也+NIL produce exactly what you'd expect from the label - beautiful, introspective, and intricate electronic music. "Setting Sun" is one of the more overtly melodic songs on the album and it's a fantastic example of what this duo are capable of.
- @CAT5
47. "アオイヤミ (Aoi Yami)" by Purple Stone
Purple Stone is certainly one to keep your eye on. Their output has been consistently good and surprisingly polished for such a young band. "Aoi Yami" is a fun mid-tempo track with strong sing-a-long vocal melodies over a familiar enough arrangement of 'heavy' verse/melodic chorus formula staples - plus some twinkly DIV-esque qualities thrown in. The song's many elements keep it varied enough in its composition that it never loses steam for the entire four and a half minutes!
- @doombox
46. "あなたを保つもの (Anata wo Tamotsu Mono)" by 坂本真綾 (Maaya Sakamoto) x コーネリアス (CORNELIUS)
When I heard that CORNELIUS would be collaborating with Maaya Sakamoto for theme of the latest Ghost in the Shell movie, I already knew we'd be in store for brilliance, and I was right. Cornelius is a modern electronic music god, and Sakamoto has performed some of the finest anime-related music ever made, so you can't get much better than that. CORNELIUS' musical interpretation of the GITS world is minimalistic, techno-laden and fittingly robotic - much colder and more sterile than Yoko Kanno's worldly, cinematic score done about a decade earlier. "あなたを保つもの (Anata wo Tamotsu Mono)" is nonetheless a perfect theme for GITS, though. CORNELIUS' production is simultaneously trippy and groovy, Sakamoto's delivery is almost mechanical, but her voice still resonates with a human warmth, and musically the song wavers back and forth from mysterious to familiar. It's the perfect song to represent the existential dualities of the GITS universe.
- @CAT5
45. "Millions of Stones" by SiM
The concept of SiM's Angels and Devils single is laid out plainly; two tracks and two very different sides of the same band. The angelic side of this single may be the more accessible as the theme for Shingeki no Bahemut GENESIS, but this fiendish track packs the bigger punch. While many bands turn the major label corner and leave their heavier music behind, this single is proof SiM have no intentions of doing so. "Millions of Stones" sits right in SiM's trademark reggae-punk/metal mash-up sweet spot. And as an added bonus, fans of the Ramones get a nice little homage with the band cheering "Hey ho let's go!" during the verses.
- @doombox
44. "Imperial Concerto" by Kamijo
As a teaser for his "Royal Blood" album, Kamijo dropped a remake of the Lareine single "Imperial Concerto" a month early. While the melody of this song is the same as the original, the 2015 version provides a souped up orchestra and re-imagines the guitar lines throughout the whole song with more shredding. The vocals have improved as well-- Kamijo packs more of a punch in his delivery without losing the frailty that made the original beautiful.
43. "insert memory" by Develop One's Faculties
Who will save #artkei? It's the most pressing question of 2015 as moran, amber gris and yazzmad have fallen to the wayside. Cue Develop One's Faculties, formed from ex-cocklobin, and chemical pictures members. A promising lineup doesnt always translate to strong music, but "insert memory" redeems their prior missteps. It opens with a jangly riff akin to Moran's upbeat singles, but instead of the raw energy Moran packed into their songs, it has a restrained vocal line and sparse chords which lead to the chorus. If there's one musical moment you'll remember this 2015, it's all hell breaking loose in the brilliant chorus: 3 or 4 tracks of vocals are tracked over each other, all singing different words on top of a twinkling guitar arpeggio. It sounds like a chaotic miss-mash of several songs all thrown into a blender with a common guitar line, but it oddly makes for one of my most emotional musical experience this year. It's all a hot mess really, but DOF make it work and end up writing an odd and heartfelt yet incredibly fun song. Will they fill the hole left by your art kei favs? I'm not sure, but if the rest of their material follows “insert memory”, then there's definite cause to rejoice.
- @emmny
42. Perfect Blue by 和楽器バンド (Wagakki Band)
For the longest time, Wagakki Band was one unit I could never get into, despite the Vocaloid link. Thanks to falling for 陰陽座 (Onmyouza) more over time and to Zeus for keeping Wagakki Band in the spotlight, I decided to give them another spin with their first original release. It's probably due to my own high expectations that I kept failing in appreciating the band, but certain tracks from 八奏絵巻 (Yasouemaki) really did it for me for the first time, my favourite being Perfect Blue. What really takes my fancy for this track is the impressive quick talking in the chorus. Not only this, but the whole melody from start to finish is gorgeous. It is very much art in its musical form, and if someone were to ask me for such a piece, this is what I'd present. "Perfect Blue" isn't lying with that name.
- @beni
41. "ヒズムリアリズム (hizumu realism)" by カラスは真っ白 (karasu wa masshiro)
"hizumu realism" caught me by surprise, as the overly 'cute' vocal style in this song that is typical of a lot of J-pop would usually send me running away in the opposite direction. But Kana's saccharine vocals come off much more genuine this time around than I remember them in the past. The synthesized guitars and other electronics backing her up maintain a fun atmosphere, but have a solid technical showmanship about them that lends the song a bit more oomph. There's just enough going on to keep the song interesting without distracting from the catchy melody. Don't be surprised if you're still humming it hours later.
- @doombox
Tune in tomorrow for the next ten!
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Looks like a bad cache setting to me and not someone intentionally hacking the service, which I guess is a silver lining. What worries me more is if anyone got a look at my personal information...
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Outburst is on 7 Riots in the End along with Gehenna...but now that I think about it, they released two versions of that CD and Outburst is only on one of them.... I dont remember which one was a live-only release!
The one without Outburst. The first press came with 6 tracks + an SE at the end.
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I had a surprisingly fun time with this season's anime series. But then again, I watched three of the series you have listed here (Concrete Revolutio, One Punch Man and Owari no Seraph's second season). The others I watched were Subete ga F ni Naru, Noragami Aragoto, Sakurako-San no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru, and Young Black Jack, which I found all to be very enjoyable and quite mature. Especially Noragami kept me on edge this time as the Bishamon-arc really did pick up the series and turned it around.
How did you feel about Concrete Revolutio? My friend was willing to give it a chance but he never got back to it. If it's any good I can tell him and maybe I'll check it out. I'm genuinely interested in finding great stuff to watch with what little free time I have, so if it does start to make sense at some point that's a plus in my book.
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After the live, Loui announced Di3SIRAE will be doing "something" "sometime" next year. He was really vague, but in a secretive kind of way...so maybe some good news next year?
I just had an interesting thought: how long does it take for a band to practice and prepare for a one-day revival live? It's been four or five years since they were an active band so they probably don't remember all of their songs by heart. Perhaps while rehearsing they felt the spark and decided to try again? It sounds like they haven't totally figured out how to come back or if they even can. I'll take it. "'something' 'sometime'" is better than nothing at all.
mad_hatter reacted to this -
This isn't the anime shit talking thread but can we pause and talk for a second about how disappointing this season was for me? I dropped so many anime this season it's not funny. I know I prefer the brainess shounen/seinen to the more story-driven anime so this is of my own doing, but even so...
Comet Lucifer - I....just never got back to this.
Concrete Revolutio - I thought this was a convoluted piece of shit that was trying too hard to be Sherlock Holmsian and didn't try hard enough to make sense. Somehow it got a second season...then again Youkai Watch outsold Star Wars in Japan so anything can happen.
Heavy Object - Big fucking circles with guns doing war with other big fucking circles with guns? That's everything I needed to know to not watch this.
Shinmai Maou no Testament S2 - I didn't even start the second episode of this. Something within me feels like a terrible pervert for even trying to puzzle out the somewhat promising story buried in all the ecchi garbage.
K: Return of Kings - One of the only things worth watching. The animation is superb and the story is stellar. Just confusing enough to remain a mystery, but I'm in the know at all times so I can follow along. Definitely recommended to those looking for anime whose scope extends past high school.Ace of Diamond S2 - I'm all over this. The last game between Yakushi and Ichidai 3rd was intense, and we don't even follow either of those teams! A show that can get me invested about the most minor of characters is doing something right.
Dragonball Super - I'll be honest; I'm watching this one mostly out of nostalgia and respect for my youth. It's not all that great. Maybe it's because I already knew the story for the first two arcs so I'll wait it out and see where things go after they defeat Freeza. Toriyama is doing a nice job filling in the gaps left by the movie, even if the pace is a bit slow for my liking. Nowhere near as bad as the original DBZ in all it's filler, bloated glory.
One Punch Man - If you try to take this show seriously you will have a bad time. I'm convinced it's a parody about all the tropes in anime that are overdone to death so when I view the show as one entire joke it's good fun. For me the show is about Saitama's struggle to find someone that can actually fight him, the Hero Association and all it's members, and everything in between. We all know he will kill whatever in one punch, so it's more about the journey than the destination.
Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen - It started picking up just as I was about to drop it. Have to thank my friend for bringing me over to his house and forcing me to get caught up. I still don't think its better than Attack on Titan, but at least things are finally happening.
The fact that Yu came back from death after rupturing all of his organs and bleeding through his eyes is complete horseshit though...I don't care what the "in universe" explanation is. And then he gets up and fifteen minutes later walks around like he wasn't staring at death in the face. Anime that continuously have to threaten almost certain death of the MC before pulling him out without any sort of immediate consequences don't have enough at stake to make the general plot interesting. Considering that this episode went twenty episodes before farting out anything resembling a decent plot progression point, I'd say I'm right on the mark. Enough with this precipice of death shit. Either kill the main character or don't set him up to look completely dead before the end of an episode to" build up suspense".
Gakusen Toshi Asterisk - I'm disappointed in another brainless battle school anime. It was initially so promising and then it became about how much each girl could beg for Ayato's dick before he beta males out of the situation. I don't know how much longer I can stand the "extremely OP male character too insecure to talk to females" trope until I want to take the Ser Veresta and smash the television with it. If you can swing a sword and obliterate almost anything if you give it enough force, you can sleep with a woman when she asks you to. I was recommending it before but now I suggest you just don't.
Sidonia no Kishi S2: I never even started this one LOL is it any good? If it's anything less than an 8/10 I'm not even going to bother.
Overall verdict: No.
Original Saku reacted to this -
For those moments when you need a reminder on how different cultures can be:
http://kotaku.com/star-wars-the-force-awakens-was-beaten-in-japan-by-y-1749174203?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=SocialflowWhile the new Star Wars movie crushes box office records across the US and Europe, let’s take this moment to consider that not every market awards box office victories based on cash money.
Japan, for example, tracks movies based on the number of ticket sales, not how much money was made by those ticket sales. And going by that criteria, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was only the #2 movie in Japan over the weekend.
Top spot was taken by (*deep breath*) Yo-Kai Watch the Movie 2: King Enma and the 5 Stories, Nyan!, the second animated movie in a game/anime series that is dominating Japan in a way not seen since the height of Pokemania. Yahoo says that 975,000 tickets were sold for the movie on Saturday and Sunday.
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I felt similarly about sukekiyo despite my positive praise for it.
Don't get me wrong; I think these guys fill an otherwise unfilled niche in the scene. Their music is complex, rhythmic, and very tribal but also something I need to be in the mood for. I also can only stand it for short bursts at a time. This goes against the band's philosophy, because their releases go on the long side. Seventeen track albums and nine track mini albums are behemoths. As I treat every album as a story and enjoy listening from beginning to end, it's easier to swallow a smaller release (VITIUM) instead of a full-length (IMMORTALIS), especially when the style of the music isn't immediately accessible.
I see VITIUM as an album and IMMORTALIS as a double-album for no reason other than the length of the material.
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So is the lineup Kamijo/Hizaki/Teru/Masashi/Yuki? That's going to be awkward for more than one day considering Masashi and Yuki just left Jupiter. There was no official reason but I figured it was because they were getting tired of playing JUPITER's music. This makes it seem like that's not the case anymore.
And if this is the real deal, how are the five of them going to work in a band together and at the same time do their own separate projects? I'm okay if Versailles doesn't release music as often as JUPITER or KAMIJO as long as whatever they drop remains quality material, but how they will split time between solo projects and the band is unknown right now. I guess they can pool their material, use what they all like for Versailles and release the rest alone... -
I would have been quite angry if Kamijo wasn't included on this year's list. He continues to show his dominance in a slowly withering scene (the man himself recognizing this decline as well, as he usually has no comment on today's Visual Kei - see several recent interviews), and he does it overwhelmingly. "Royal Blood -Revival Best-" isn't just a collection of re-recorded tracks, it is a widespread Visual Kei anthology covering almost three respectful decades of a single man's work, work that speaks for almost an entire musical genre (if we may call this a genre, just for now), and it is a biography that will still be spoken of in many years to come. I couldn't imagine not being the proud owner of yet another piece of his work with this on my shelf.
It's always the toss up between "I hope x release is in the Top 5" and "Did the staff even include x album on this year's list?". This was voted our 6th best album of the year, so from here on out everything is what ORZ as a whole felt was really good.
Also, can you link these interviews? I'm interested in the opinions of someone who has actually lived this scene instead of experiencing it online. His words have more weight to me than others.
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Where do you ever find all of this information?
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"FLASH" is one seriously catchy album. I hope more people take a leap of faith on this one and check them out, because they're pretty tight and overall a very accessible, smooth sound. I might even consider this their best album yet - their next most popular album "Revision" didn't resonate with me as much as "FLASH" did.
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I think this sounds dope. I don't like most of BORN's music but Ryouga has a nice voice and he can hold a note. If he's in a different band I would love to see how it works out, since he's in some ways been in the same band since 2004.
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So if im reading this thread correctly as well as the shit storm that was the status updates over the last few months....
>Rolled out optional new beta alongside old layout and asks for suggestions and improvements
>Complaints.
>Last.fm forces the updates without taking any user feedback from complaints first.
>Now they layout is no longer in beta because it is now "in production".
>The new skin removes/breaks functionality that has been a part of the website for years, including things such as voting images up/down, deleting accounts, creating journals, and editing wiki entries.
>The new skin provides no new functionality
>The new skin is easier to browse on a mobile device but more difficult to browse on a computer (personal preference but I think the original layout was fine even if it needed some work. the new layout is an eyesore)
>The new layout is incompatible with the last.fm playground killing off a ton of additional third-party services with no warning.
>No new third-party services have been added to fill the gap.
>Scrobbles if/when it feels like it, leaving the only remaining feature of Last.fm to be inconsistent at best.
>Terrible "integration" with Spotify...it's not even integrated well the website functions as a browser version of Spotify that just opens up the program when requested...
>Still complaints....even more exaggerated than before especially when the site clearly says "beta version."
>Staff deletes complaints from Twitter feed instead of addressing them maturely (how much shit would I get for this if I did it to anyone here?)
>Little to no communication about what features are planned to return when.
>Last.fm Finally
updatesrestores some features in a half-broken state.>Said features are either long overdue or not the most highly requested features by users.
>Ppl (whoever hasn't left)
happyslightly less upset than before.Seems like ppl just need some patience....?
It's more than "just patience". This is years of gross incompetence and mismanagement. CBS has thrown in the towel and wants to kill off the service or integrate it with already existing ones. They've all but come out and said it. Last.fm was early to the party but late to perform if you catch my drift. It had the right idea more than ten years ago, but they didn't play to their strengths. Instead of pushing nerdy data crunching tools they're trying to get you to purchase music and buy Subscriber accounts and listen to the Last.fm radio, none of which is worth the $3 monthly fee they charge you. It's not even why most people use the website (I liked the charts, graphs, and the science they were doing with categorizing music by mood,speed,etc.) and it shows how out of touch management is with the user base.
Users aren't leaving the website in droves for no reason.
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Any reasons as to why?
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I'm actually really looking forward to this. This could either be incredibly interesting or a hilarious trainwreck.
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I wish I could feel this way - I do want to take a crack at this one with my speaker system and see if that changes my feeling about it...got to wait for a day the gf is gone since there is no way it would fly with her home lmao.
As far as sounding like RC in terms of production, I would have to disagree with that. As someone who has listened to all together way too much of their music and am always going back to their work, their production has never bothered me in the same was Rigen did. Well, maybe Empros a bit, but even that one I like quite a bit more.
COHOL is one of the few modern bands playing a second-wave style of black metal that's not totally obsessed with sounding like crap. It's a large part of the reason why I like them so much. If I were to describe the production of Rigen in one word, I would say "careful". The more I listen, the more I realize that the production quirks are conscious choices made to evoke some feeling in the listener (what they intended versus what we get is a different convo though). They aren't always the best choices - Endless Ember was an example I gave in my Featured Review where the contrast between crisp, clear mellow parts and muddy metal turned me off - but in some cases it works.
I am enraptured with the tremolo-picked, double bass opening of Infrastructure for example, which is so damn heavy and brutal everything goes to shit in the best way possible for 10-15 seconds. Yeah it sounds like a muddy mess, but that mess captures an emotion that wouldn't be there if the riffs were cleaner. Then like a minute later there's a curious interlude which is much clearer than the whirlwind of metal before it - and there are one or two more examples of this contrast occurring elsewhere on Rigen - so I think they chose to record the metal sections the way they are. Or maybe they paid extra attention to those slower parts for maximum impact. IDK.
In some way I'm willing to overlook the flaws of Rigen due to the genre we're talking about. As far as other BM albums goes this sounds pretty good. But if comparisons to anything is free game then there is room for improvement. I also don't think RC's production sounds similar to this because the way they mix post-rock and metal is completely different to the way COHOL does. RC is more post-rock then metal and COHOL is more metal than post rock. The way the two bands choose to balance their instruments in the mix reflects that (for example bass guitar is more prominent of an instrument in RC, while it merely supports the rhythm in COHOL). If 309 from Empros were to be produced the way any of the tracks on Rigen were, the entire middle section of that song would be a fuzzed out mess. If Infrastructure were recorded with RC quality, it would sound sterile and lack impact...I can't really compare the two too deeply.
Original Saku and The Reverend reacted to this -
im happy u guys changed ur minds after the unfavourable BNT feature
i liked it more than recitation and insomniac doze; i think its good middle ground between the more straight forward post-whatever of the former and bloated atmospheric time wasting of the later
it'll take a few more listens to fully sink in on me but the negative reception outside of here is still surprising to me considering how much they liked the shitshow that was insomniac doze.
I think a lot of it had to do with expectations. Many fans expected envy to stick firmly in one camp or the other and were disappointed when the mix of the two wasn't as bombastic as they hoped. I've seen a lot of other people criticize the album for not pushing the envelope enough. On the other hand, I had no expectations for "Atheist's Cornea". It was a "let's sit down, listen, and see" sort of deal. It didn't blow me away but it was totally solid from beginning to end.
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They're releasing too many singles IMO but at the same time this band does well with shorter releases so I don't know. I did like most of their latest singles so there's that. At this rate Arlequin will into the same problem with album two that they had on "near equal" - too many of the good tracks were released as singles and the new tracks weren't enough to keep my attention.
Monochrome Heaven's Top 50 Tracks of 2015
in Reviews
Posted
Monochrome Heaven Top 50 of 2015
#40-#31
40. ネモフィラ (nemophila) by イツエ (itsue)
39. "月曜のメランコリー (getsuyo no melancholy)" by BOMI
38. "ツキナミ (tsukinami)" by 分島花音 (Kanon Wakeshima)
37. "アネモネ (anemone)" by ペンタゴン (pentagon)
36. "Ignorant Rain at the End of the World" by envy
35. "包丁の正しい使い方～思想編～ (houchou no tadashii tsukaikata～shuusokuhen～)" by DEZERT
34. "My Little Wish" by toe
33. "Kaedit Nos Pestis" by Sigh
32. "九尾 (kyuubi)" by 己龍 (kiryu)
31. Charisma.com - "やれよ。(Yareyo.)"
See you tomorrow for the next ten!