I'm introducing myself here just for breaking the ice.
I've always listened to VK but I never had the opportunity to share the songs I liked with anybody. So I guess this forum is a nice chance for me to involve with the VK community in general.
I also started to play guitar recently and I hope I can get/share tabs with you people
My favorite bands are: Mejibray, DADAROMA, hide, Girugamesh and Deathgaze. But I get so sad listening hide, so I don't listen to it anymore. (maybe because he had a lot of "cheer up" songs but left us)
A diamond in the rough that brings together all the qualities we love about 90's visual-kei.
Every age of music has a few standout acts, and the visual-kei scene is absolutely no exception. When looking at somewhat official sources of information on the subject (think Wikipedia or something of that nature), you’re almost guaranteed to find a few notable examples of acts that have irrefutably left their mark: X, Luna Sea, Kuroyume, Shazna, Malice Mizer, Penicillin, Color, Glay—the list could go on and on. However, there are also other examples of lesser-known names who were equally as enjoyable, but may did not have achieved the same amount of financial success as the greats. While the phrase “fringe acts are fringe for a reason” holds quite a bit of merit, intrinsic artistic value cannot always been measured by number of CDs sold. To me, Cynthia is a prime example of a hidden gem that goes unremembered except by a very small few. As an official reviewer, I feel that part of my duties is to preserve their memory and ensure that such a great band does not get lost in the sands of time.
On the surface, Cynthia were a fairly typical late 90’s visual band; band—gaudy outfits that were probably hand-made, long, flowing hair in a variety of unnatural colors, and heavy handed makeup. This was a time in visual-kei in which the scene was transitioning into its third era — softer, melodic bands were quite common and successful, but a new wave of darker and more flamboyant bands were was beginning to arise on popular labels like Matina and Key Party - where visual-kei started to branch out and really experiment with costumes as a result of bands like Malice Mizer and Lareine, and seek different forms of music that weren’t necessarily trying to be Kuroyume or Luna Sea. In this ecosystem, Cynthia was formed and produced quite colorful music that unfortunately has fallen to the wayside. Before their demise, the band released a collection album called Memories of Cynthia that contains the vast majority of their output in one location. While collection albums today are somewhat redundant, as most material is very easy to come be either digitally or in a store, the songs here are guaranteed to be better quality than their original tape forms and it seems like some of them have also been rerecorded too.
Having only tried them relatively recently, what drew me to Cynthia was their ability to take the popular melodic rock, mix it with some metallic influences, and add in symphonic orchestration. While most of the instrumental aspects to their music were undeniably artificial, such as canned background pipe organ and choirs a la Malice Mizer, the way in which they were used really caught my attention. Take for example, their song “in solitude.” This song makes fantastic use of melancholic vocal melodies and clever guitar work that is perfectly accented by both background pipe organ runs, ominous choir harmonies, and super dramatic tension and resolutions in their melodic progression of the whole song. This was the first track I had ever heard by Cynthia and was immediately hooked — the way that it is structured was so much better than a generic late 90’s song, coupled with their well placed guitar arpeggios that transition so well from section to section, made me know that this wasn’t just another faceless band (don’t get me wrong—no-name bands are my bread and butter) who was just cashing in on the eins zwei dreis of the time. While this song does have technical flaws in its composition and delivery, it makes up for them in its passion and capacity to really drive home a feeling of solitude, even if it is behind a thick veil of ridiculous campiness that I’ve grown to love.
From hearing this album numerous times, what draws me to Cynthia is exactly that—a solid sense of musicianship that isn’t afraid to not take itself so seriously. This band is prone to delivering bombastic guitar solos, super cheesy (in a loving way!) symphonic elements, and vocals that glue it all together with its raw charm that I can only seem to find in visual-kei. A perfect example of what I mean is track 9 – “Breathless Tears.” This song is a conglomeration of everything I love about the scene and all of its hallmarks: acoustic support guitar, ultra melodic bridges, English that isn’t quite audible, arpeggios accented by a completely artificial chorus, and a killer guitar solo to show that they can still play even if they did up the cheesiness to level 10. The ritardando (slight slowing down of tempo) towards the end of the song before the last rehash of the chorus also really drives the song home for me, as does the clearly classically-inspired ending phrase that surprisingly ends in a major key. Whoever their main composer was clearly did their homework and drew influence from more sources than just “Hall of the Mountain King.”
While I regrettably do not know too much of Cynthia’s history and their relation to other ~friend bands~, it was pretty interesting to hear that they often used guest vocalists to cameo on a few songs. While I do not recognize most of them, it’s a super call effect that I wish happened more often (Versailles’ “Princess” that used Kaya, allegedly, doesn’t really count). For example, in the industrial-influenced “Manipulate,” the core lyric during the chorus is “Crazy for you!” blurted out in between each line. Towards the end of the song you are able to hear several special guests chime in. While this song is fun in its own right for its very mechanically sounding guitar work and relentlessly obsessive melodic structure, the addition of random people really makes the song so much cooler.
Special guests are featured again in another track on Memory of Cynthia, entitled “Rain~Rain by the name of Desperation~.” While this song is much faster paced and more organic sounding than the previous example, cameos are made towards the end in a similar you-each-get-one-line between phrases in the chorus fashion. In spite of its ridiculous name, “Rain” is probably my second favorite song by Cynthia. It’s super pretty, yet spunky, and with a name like that you can expect the most music-video-full-of-face-touchingly-fun melodramatic cheese possible (side note: I’m both bewildered and happy that I’m sure people will know exactly what I mean by that). If a random reggae breakdown doesn’t peak your interest, then I’m sure the barrage of vocalist exchanges will. I do not think that they used the same special guests in this song they did in “Manipulate,” but then again I can only recognize one because he has an incredibly distinctive voice, and that is Yayoi (of Vice Risk / Deadly Sanctuary / Angel+Dust, etc and current owner of Rockstar Records). Fair warning: towards the end of this song, the very last sung part is a very big “for mmeeeeeee!!” that isn’t quite…the right note. He damn well tried, though.
In spite of their flaws, Cynthia were a pretty phenomenal band. I truly appreciate the intricacies they placed in their compositions and their out-of-the-box approach to typical song archetypes of the time. While I can see their success being limited by their somewhat strange quality of their vocalist’s voice, they definitely deserve more credit today than they currently get. If you check out this album and like what you hear, I also recommend checking out their contemporary partner L,Dear, another symphonic band that had some great guitar work but had fairly long songs similar to how X wrote their classics like “Jealousy” and “Dhalia.”
I'm not sure what to write here but what the hell, hello!! Hello!!!
I decided to create this account after finding out about this forum a few weeks ago, I realized I was never in much contact with other visual kei fans despite being into it for about a decade!
I'm not that old tho, I started listening early is all!
My favorite VK bands would be, well, Dir en Grey, not much of a surprise there, Kagrra (is it Kagrra or Kagrra,? I never figured it out) and Raphael, and recently I started getting into rice's early stuff (I jsut wish it was easier to find said early stuff) thanks to Yuki's amazing voice, and Morrigan.
I remember listening a lot to Phantasmagoria when I was younger too...
So I guess that's all for now, pleased to meet whoever reads this~
^ Toukiden is a action role playing "hack n' slash" game developed by Tecmo Koei, It's sort of similar to Monster Hunter in some ways and other more simple hack n' slash games of that genre (ie. God Eater, Freedom Wars). Visually I would say it has sort of a Dynasty or Samurai Warriors look, which makes sense seeing as they also make those gasme series as well.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'm liking this place already!
Plastic Tree was very different from what I remembered. A bit slower music than what I usually listen to but it gave a nice tranquil feeling... or maybe it was the alcohol that did that?
DADAROMA I had heard before. I listened to their halloween song some time ago and it was pretty bad imo But luckily I gave them a new shot. They're cool. definitely need to listen some more.
I recently discovered this site and am still feeling my way around~ but so far I like it. I've been into Visual kei for the past 3 years but recently I've had a resurgence of getting more into Visual Kei and this seems like a good place to stay up to date with new bands and finding other people who have a similiar taste in music as I do~ Also Its awesome I can buy magazines, goods, etc of my favourite bands here too~ I love collecting the magazines, CDs and such ( ^ u ^ )/"
Soooo yeah it's nice to meet everyone! My favourite bands are D, Mejibray, Sugar, Diaura, Lycaon, Acid Black Cherry, Bucktick etc etc I could go on~
Some recent bands I like are The Gallo, Dadaroma and Avanchick! ( * u * )
I'm open to find more music and friends here too while I'm at it ( ^ w ^ )
it is announced at HOLLOWGRAM live at Shibuya VUENOS at 2015/11/15 that their new mini album "MALUS" will be released at 2016/01/20 (2 TYPE - regular edition 2,160yen / limited edition 3,000yen), for which limited edition will further include bonus track and will be sold in advance at their 2nd anniversary one-man live "Moreau's palette" at Shinjuku LOFT at 2016/01/17
btw HOLLOWGRAM×STEREO.C.K will hold their coupling live tour "HOROSCOPES 2016" at Shinsaibashi FANJ at 2016/03/12, at NAGOYA HOLIDAY NEXT at 2016/03/13 and at Shinjuku LOFT at 2016/03/21
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