Manabu

agreed! really enjoyed listening to this

We're almost there, the year drawing to a close and hopefully a few days where we can forget about how bad everything has been and without further adieu 
 
How are you spending the holidays? (What holiday are you celebrating?) What presents are you hoping to receive? What presents are you planning to give? Have you been naughty or nice? (Feel free to answer as many or as few as you like)
 
I'm at home with the parents, we're going to my sisters to see the whole family because the UK restrictions are being relaxed. As for gifts, I've mostly asked for CD's and books so hopefully I'll be spending some time enjoying Hide with spread beaver and reading some Junji Ito classics.
 
I've picked up some toys for my nephews, skincare for my niece (very sad realising she's grown up and isn't content with dolls or colouring pencils anymore) and crafting items and books for the parents.
 
Lastly, I'm confident in saying I'm on the nice list!

We're almost there, the year drawing to a close and hopefully a few days where we can forget about how bad everything has been and without further adieu 
 
How are you spending the holidays? (What holiday are you celebrating?) What presents are you hoping to receive? What presents are you planning to give? Have you been naughty or nice? (Feel free to answer as many or as few as you like)
 
I'm at home with the parents, we're going to my sisters to see the whole family because the UK restrictions are being relaxed. As for gifts, I've mostly asked for CD's and books so hopefully I'll be spending some time enjoying Hide with spread beaver and reading some Junji Ito classics.
 
I've picked up some toys for my nephews, skincare for my niece (very sad realising she's grown up and isn't content with dolls or colouring pencils anymore) and crafting items and books for the parents.
 
Lastly, I'm confident in saying I'm on the nice list!

Not doing anything different for the holidays, just lots of food on christmas day and hanging out with mom and sister on the bank holidays. 
 
In terms of gifts, I'm hoping to receive a book voucher and some moisturiser. I received my main gift yesterday which was a food processor  couldn't wait any longer to try it out (also this is when you know you're an adult™️, asking for kitchen appliances over of anything else).
 
I already told all my friends that I won't be getting them gifts and they shouldn't get me anything either cuz everyone's broke this year but I know one friend got me something anyway, so I'll probably bake her some cookies in exchange. I got a beautiful handmade journal made of recycled paper and Saris from India and some flower stickers for my mom and a couple of enamel pins, stickers and a crystal for my sis. This year I aimed to shop local (or from small businesses) and not from amazon whenever I can, so I think that puts me on the 'nice' list, right?

Member leaves band  after 23 years and retires from music and instead of people lamenting that it's just a bunch of shit posts trashing him and the band. I don't get it... Well, actually I kinda do since some of you are a gimmick/act at this point. Just way too damn negative. 
 
Anyway... Surreal news because I was listening to their earlier stuff like 2 days ago and looking at their earlier photo shoots and those really young pics of them in the AISHUU booklet and thought to myself holy shit these guys have longevity.  I was appreciating how they've stuck together over the years and then I wake up to this news today. What a coincidence.
 
2020 has been wild between Kenichi leaving Merry, Ryo leaving Baroque and retiring from music, and now this latest succession and retirement... Like, what is he going to do now? I'm surprised he's leaving music entirely.
 
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/d293c00d-015d-4aae-9b76-b5754c63f6d3/works
 
He composed some pretty great songs: KINSENKA, NUKEGARA, MEDIA NO JUUSEI, REQUIEM, MAE E, HOTARU etc...

Wow, all this time I thought it was people trading their beloved CD's
 
Count me in!

That's cool, I think with X Japan they're the kind of group that may seem boring to some but need to be respected for what they were doing, it's similar to what J Dilla did for hip-hop, it was new and ground breaking at the time. Can't say I know much about Shazna but I'd argue the likes of X Japan, Buck-Tick and D'erlanger had quite a lot of involvement in making VK popular

check the Nagasawa Tomonori interview.
 
sure xjapan had some involvement, but it was Shazna who succeeded to make it accepted to the mainstream.  it wasn't xjapan.  SHAZNA is the king of vkei. 
 
Of course I do respect XJAPAN, but doesn't mean that their music was really amazing.  I think they kept vkei alive. people forgot shazna but not xjapan.
 
btw, Hide's solo projects where far more amazing than any xjapan release😅
 

VK is such an expansive genre that it might be easier if you tell us genre's you already like. 
 
Luna Sea are a great starting point because whilst X Japan are considered the founders of Visual Kei, Luna Sea really crafted the genre and were quite ahead of their time.
Merry are another group that I'd massively recommended , quite a few different styles in their music but they're imo one of the most unique VK groups, if I had to I'd say they're a hard rock/punk group but they've got a lot of jazz influences.
 
I'd recommend their greatest hits albums because you'll get the full scope of their music.

well, after doing some digging here's the list i came up with, there were quite a few i had forgotten about. as always, i'm separating vk and j-indie. i surprisingly had a lot of s/t favorites on the j-indie end.
 
9GOATS BLACK OUT - TANATOS
baroque - peur et puella
baroque - sin division
cocklobin - iris
cocklobin - chronus
Dezert - Title Nashi
gibkiy gibkiy gibkiy - In incontinence
the god and death stars - Dawn of the God (all of their albums were great but i prob listened to this one the most)
Kannivalism - helios
kebyou - dokushin
my bacteria heat island - mimic
Plastic Tree - Ammonite
Plastic Tree - Ink
...silence - dreamer dreamer
...silence - psycho lens
 
Asunojokei - A bird in the fault
Asunojokei - Awakening
Behind the Shadow Drops - Harmonic
the dresscodes - s/t
dummy-xD - s/t
for example you sell the sea - s/t
FOX LOCO PHANTOM - garden
FOX LOCO PHANTOM - dare ga tame ni oto wa naru
Ling tosite sigure - still a sigure virgin?
Ling tosite sigure - I'mperfect
THE NOVEMBERS - to (melt into)
THE NOVEMBERS - Rhapsody in Beauty
qujaku - pretty much everything by them
PELICAN FANCLUB - s/t
SHISHAMO - s/t
THE TEENAGE KISSERS - Virgin Field
World's End Girlfriend - Last Waltz
 
edit: whoops, apparently got the year wrong on one of them....

TL:DR Version
Acidman - Alma
Alice Nine - Gemini
Baroque - Puer et Puella
Chanty - Chantyの世界へようこそ
Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - All that we have now
Matenrou Opera - Avalon
Radwimps - Zettai Zetsumei 
 
Honourable Mentions
Amazarashi - ワンルーム叙事詩
Miyavi - What's My Name?
Shounenki - Any EP/Mini Album
 
 

The vagueness of the statement is what really exacerbated this whole thing. This sounds like they're deciding their live future, if it goes well they'll play at venues, if not they'll restrict it to online streaming, I can't guarantee that but I feel this is to drum up some more intrigue.

The vagueness of the statement is what really exacerbated this whole thing. This sounds like they're deciding their live future, if it goes well they'll play at venues, if not they'll restrict it to online streaming, I can't guarantee that but I feel this is to drum up some more intrigue.

New band "Nero Chronicle" has formed
 
Members are still unknown
They will start their activites at 2020/11/15
 

 
https://twitter.com/nero_chronicle

Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
  -  sounded fresher than anything else vk at the time and still sounds fresh today.
DEG - Dum Spiro Spero
  -  not as good as Uroboros but the highs of this album (about half of it) are great.
DIAURA - Incomplete
  -  has most their best songs and Yo-ka's vocals sound super smooth. Cool mixture of old school and new school sound.
Dimlim - Chedoara
  -  the pv tracks are still the best but it's all good.
gibkiy gibkiy gibkiy - Fujouri Shugeki and In incontinence
  -  experienced old man musicians at the top of their game. Hard to pick one out of these two albums.
IX NINE - NIRDVANDVA
  -  mainly the first disc. Nice blend of metal, electronic, and sadboi atmospheric stuff.
The Gallo - Diavolo and Lucifero
  -  the vibration of Jojo's vocals is really addictive to listen to and the music is really catchy but never gets old. I blasted these two albums everyday for ages.
Tokusatsu - 5 Nengo no Sekai
  -  Ootsuki Kenji at his best. Has the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei openings and a bunch of other really great songs.
Wowaka - Unhappy Refrain
  -  mathy vocaloid rock. RIP.
 
Special Mention:
 - llll ligro - Tomurai: the 17 minutes of this that got released before it died was super good. RIP.
 
Honorable mentions:
- AINS stuff (Grieva, Kuroyuri to Kage, Gossip, Diaura): nearly everything off this label up to 2018 was really good.
- D.I.D - Providentia
- Kiryu - Mugen Hoyou and Shuka Ensen
- The god and death star's stuff

I don't remember my last post. Maybe 3-4 years ago.
 
Here's me with a real dinosaur at a zoo on Halloween.
 

TL:DR Version
Acidman - Alma
Alice Nine - Gemini
Baroque - Puer et Puella
Chanty - Chantyの世界へようこそ
Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - All that we have now
Matenrou Opera - Avalon
Radwimps - Zettai Zetsumei 
 
Honourable Mentions
Amazarashi - ワンルーム叙事詩
Miyavi - What's My Name?
Shounenki - Any EP/Mini Album
 
 

TL:DR Version
Acidman - Alma
Alice Nine - Gemini
Baroque - Puer et Puella
Chanty - Chantyの世界へようこそ
Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - All that we have now
Matenrou Opera - Avalon
Radwimps - Zettai Zetsumei 
 
Honourable Mentions
Amazarashi - ワンルーム叙事詩
Miyavi - What's My Name?
Shounenki - Any EP/Mini Album
 
 

TL:DR Version
Acidman - Alma
Alice Nine - Gemini
Baroque - Puer et Puella
Chanty - Chantyの世界へようこそ
Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - All that we have now
Matenrou Opera - Avalon
Radwimps - Zettai Zetsumei 
 
Honourable Mentions
Amazarashi - ワンルーム叙事詩
Miyavi - What's My Name?
Shounenki - Any EP/Mini Album
 
 

TL:DR Version
Acidman - Alma
Alice Nine - Gemini
Baroque - Puer et Puella
Chanty - Chantyの世界へようこそ
Develop One's Faculties - Reincarnation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - All that we have now
Matenrou Opera - Avalon
Radwimps - Zettai Zetsumei 
 
Honourable Mentions
Amazarashi - ワンルーム叙事詩
Miyavi - What's My Name?
Shounenki - Any EP/Mini Album
 
 

Despite everything that is going on  in the world right now, I'm in a big Halloween mood at the moment

Jeff Goldblum
 
His rendition of Cantaloupe Island
 
It's not the least bit surprising that it's jazz music, sadly from what I've heard it's mostly covers but it's nice to hear some of the golden oldies getting a boom in the modern age.

Not Visual Kei but FACT had quite a good following, once separated they formed two groups 'Shadows' and 'Joy Opposites'
Both had a bit of steam at the beginning but it quickly faded away and neither group sounded immensely different to FACT

This is me at Japanese Restaurant in my city LOL