EzraEroguro

kyotaro?? NO WAY... this is sweet

For real, I haven't been as hyped about anything Visual-Kei related since maybe, like, Sukekiyo's first album?

HOLD UP, MY BOY KYOUTARO IS BACK!?

the more i look at it, the more kyo starts to resemble some fucked up mashup between a kpop idol, lil peep and yoda 

Looks like Kyo stuck his hand in Ghostbusters slime or perhaps just a green septic tank after snorting fermented faecal matter.
 
Toshiya just escaped the set of a live-action Castlevania movie.
 
Kaoru is 100% sure his taste in fashion is good (but it's not). Why does his make-up always look so dreadful?
 
Die just auditioned for bishounen of the month.
 
Shinya looks the exact fucking same.

Can't believe the full song is finally up. It's a bit tricky but I found it at [THE CONTENT OF THIS POST IS FOR PREMIUM MEMBERS ONLY.  YOU NEED A MONOCHROME HEAVEN PREMIUM ACCOUNT TO ACCESS THIS POST]

the art queens are BACK  sasha velour is SHAKING

Seriously, Satsuki used to be queen back in the day.
Girl is seriously busted as fuck, now. I dunno what she's doing with her life.

Why is she rapping? Who gave this the okay?

I’ve had a Heresy membership for the past three years and to be honest I find it relatively cheap compared to other bands. I’m excited to see what they have in store for members during this new era. That being said, I think for what you pay for, you don’t get a whole lot out of it when it comes to their international fans. That’s to be expected. 
 
I’m not the biggest GazettE fan nor are they my favorite band but I do appreciate that they’ve since earned the respect they deserve over the years and continue to push out good music for what it’s worth. I don’t mind supporting them any way I can because after bands like 12012 and Sadie calling it quits, there’s only a few other Japanese bands that I even care about anymore.
 
I’m getting older, I’m married, have a kid on the way, work way too much and really don’t have the time to get into new music like I used to. So, seeing the GazettE still active and doing their thing and seeing them grow from their Cockayne Soup days to NINE really puts a smile on my face. 

<3

how many years y'all think ryutaro's got left before his voice just gives out completely? it cant take much longer

Yas! my copies just arrived!
 

This is amazing. Almost on par with when people realized that the tracklists for Rentrer en Soi’s Kein no Hitsugi and Astre no Ito were swapped. 

I love that I was recently bitching about how they’ve ignored Ash for years and now here we are. 

I think I'm starting to look forward to Ash just by virtue of it pissing everyone here off.
 
Years ago, when the Hageshisa single was released, I wanted a Kiri to Mayu remake because I knew how good that song could be with their new sound, and I think that will be the case for Ash as well. If you don't like Metal, you're not going to like this.

I hope they do. That version of Tsumi to batsu is my favorite.

I'm being 100% real when I posit this question. I love this band. I really do. So please understand I'm coming from a place of love when I ask.
 
So, I've been listening to VESTIGE OF SCRATCHES, and I can't understand why any one of us would like any of this old Dir en grey shit. It's. Awful. What compelled you all to like this band? 
 
For me, it was after my mom bought me a copy of Withering to death. after I was sick for like...2 weeks.
 
Tl;Dr - old DEG is a mess, what got you into  them? 
 

2018 IS THE YEAR OF GOTHS

There's been a lot of negativity in this thread recently (not sure if troll or not). Just throwing my hat in the ring with some positive (but hopefully fair) mini-reviews. You do not have to agree with my opinion.
 
GAUZE: Slightly awkward in places. Much of this is generic for a VK band. Unlike almost anything later, this is basically a true Visual Kei album, with strong pop hooks, light, bouncy instrumentals, and some exceptions. Mazohyst is the first sign that the band want to go conceptual, epic, and darker than their peers. The Mode of... tracks do little more than just exist, possibly a throwback to La:Sadie's or perhaps Malice Mizer. I find Schwein no Isu and MASK very forgettable. ZAN is gigantic; the remake doesn't stand up to Kyo's insanity in the original version, yet it makes up for it by being br00tal (or something). Also, the video for Yokan is fucking hot.
Fav track: アクロの丘
 
MACABRE: This album is the seed of what is to come. It's almost a proto-UROBOROS in its concept, yet maintains the playful pop of GAUZE enough that it isn't totally bleak. You can tell that they wanted this album to be truly epic, but their immaturity as a band means that it doesn't quite hit that mark. It's still great, though. The only song I'd lose here is audrey (too predictable/tedious). 
Fav track: egnirys cimredopyh +) an injection
 
ain't afraid to die: Just this one song alone is better than many albums out there. Glorious.
 
Kisou: I guess some people love this and some loathe it. For me, it's the former. This is the first time we see DEG try something totally new. It's like Experimental Industrial Electronic Punk; really raw and in your face. The amount of sonic variety means that there should be something here for everyone. The interludes are cool, although I can see why maybe they're disliked. I'd say that this album is almost perfect, with only The Domestic Fucker Family being weirdly out of place. Oh, and PINK KILLER is amazing. 
Fav track: 鴉-karasu-
 
six Ugly: Strangely, there are two remakes here, with Children being only 2 years old at the time. However, everything here is good. Excellent, in fact. It'd be cool to see Hades back in the live show. 
Fav track: HADES
 
VULGAR: OBSCURE is enormous. That's not to say that this is the only reason to listen to the album. When this first came out, I was a little disappointed, as every track sounded more or less the same (just guitars, barely any electronics unlike Kisou). It quickly grew on me, though. There's very little to dislike here (at a stretch, maybe Sajou no Uta is a tad forgettable). At this point, there's almost none of the old DEG sound left.
Fav track:  NEW AGE CULTURE
 
Withering to death.: I was so not excited when this was announced and I have no idea why. I dithered on the purchase until I heard a clip of 愛しさは腐敗につき, and then instabought it just for that song. Wow, this thing is great. Some people criticise the production (it sounds too clean?), although it seems fine to me. This is a return to a more playful aesthetic for the band that I still really wish they'd touch back on. Aside from the rather blah Jesus Christ R 'n R, this album is solid. dead tree to the end is basically perfect. Yes, even Beautiful Dirt. Yes, even GARBAGE. Love this thing.
Fav track: Spilled Milk
 
THE MARROW OF A BONE: Weird Engrishy titles, weird Engrishy lyrics, Kyo's voice steadily getting worse with each successive live, and the band just suddenly went very dark and angry. This album turned a lot of people away from the band. I listened once and almost threw away the CD. Didn't listen to the band for months. Then I gave it a second try, and it made sense. I spent an entire Summer listening to nothing but this while painting. It was truly something else. Yes, it's messy, ugly, and raw as fuck, but that was the point. It's grotesque and Kyo sounds like a cat in a blender. But alongside all this rage, we have moments of utter spellbinding beauty, too; songs that are some of the highlights of DEG's entire career up until this point. Just fantastic. My only complaint might be that some of it feels a little undercooked. A little repetitive, perhaps. But it feels honest and true in its message.
Fav track: 艶かしき安息、躊躇いに微笑み
 
UROBOROS: Hoo, boy. This one. This is the album that MACABRE wanted to be, but wasn't. It's also possibly the most complicated album in terms of song structure and writing techniques. This thing is an absolute beast; a monster. In my opinion, this may be the band's finest moment. Every track here has a reason to exist. It's marvellous. Possibly my favourite album next to Kisou.
The initial release was plagued by slightly dodgy mixing (didn't notice how bad it was at the time). Another big problem with the original version was the inclusion of the atrocious English versions of Glass Skin and DOZING GREEN. The remaster fixes these things, but also adds in the remake HYDRA 666 for absolutely no reason. It doesn't really fit and already had its place on the single. 
Fav track: VINUSHKA
 
DUM SPIRO SPERO: Thought UROBOROS was complex? Think again! Here, the band decided to cram as many ideas as they possibly could into each song, resulting in some completely bizarre Frankenstein's monster of an LP. This is the sort of album that you could probably hear something different in every time you listened. In the studio, it works very, very well, but live, the album falls short, with the band's meagre 5-piece unable to fully re-create the enormous sound they created with computer magic. This album is good, but it's also quite bleak, dreary, and at times a little tedious. It tries to push the UROBOROS idea too hard and goes a bit off the deep end, for better or for worse. This was also the time where the band's output became glacial. Hageshisa to... was released two years prior to this, and I was already bored of it when the album finally came out (and the mixing was terrible). Also, side note: the 'symphonic' versions are absolutely rubbish. They should have hired an orchestra or some actual performers to play with them (not necessarily on stage). Also, second side-note: this is the beginning of the polarising 'Kyopera'.
Fav track:  「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨
 
ARCHE: On the surface, this is a return to the band's old sound... sort of. It's like looking through a gloomy telescope at that old material and reminiscing on it. I'd say this is more mature, more measured. Less spontaneous. It's really very good. I have absolutely no complaints here.
Fav track: 濤声
 
TL;DR: I am a Dir en grey fan and I like the band's music. So there.

To be honest, for most of the time spent loving this band, I’ve never understood the praise for Gauze. Now, mind you, I got into DEG when Vulgar was the newest album. I went backwards from there and everything still sort of made sense. So naturally I got super excited about Withering to death and preordered it and everything. What I got, to my American ears that were new to jrock, was a bunch of dudes that didn’t know how to play metal. I hated it, and to this day it’s still my least played DEG album. I went thru my own little revolt and would only listen to the first three albums for a while. 
 
But Gauze. Gauze is held in this lofty position of being some great cornerstone of VK. Why? Once you dig deeper into VK you realize that tons of bands were already doing what DEG had done on Gauze. What makes it so special compared to anything Luna Sea and Kuroyume did? There are people that say Gauze is their best album. Are they serious? Is this coming from Yoshiki fans? 
 
I dont get it. 

I'm being 100% real when I posit this question. I love this band. I really do. So please understand I'm coming from a place of love when I ask.
 
So, I've been listening to VESTIGE OF SCRATCHES, and I can't understand why any one of us would like any of this old Dir en grey shit. It's. Awful. What compelled you all to like this band? 
 
For me, it was after my mom bought me a copy of Withering to death. after I was sick for like...2 weeks.
 
Tl;Dr - old DEG is a mess, what got you into  them? 
 

I'm being 100% real when I posit this question. I love this band. I really do. So please understand I'm coming from a place of love when I ask.
 
So, I've been listening to VESTIGE OF SCRATCHES, and I can't understand why any one of us would like any of this old Dir en grey shit. It's. Awful. What compelled you all to like this band? 
 
For me, it was after my mom bought me a copy of Withering to death. after I was sick for like...2 weeks.
 
Tl;Dr - old DEG is a mess, what got you into  them? 
 

sksksks it just feel like old days just a little bit with all these messes by the particular user

i'm sorry i tried

Hot Take: this is the only listenable version of this song.