*littlelamb

He's had back problems since forever, the hospital visit in 2009 was just the worst it's been. Sounds like this will be a more thorough treatment period with surgery and proper recuperation. It was only a matter of time really. He'll certainly be back.

I might have to buy this just for Tokyo ni furu yuki... and Midnight Shangrila. But what I find interesting is that it's a Victor entertainment release, yet it has their new stuff as well.

PQw8KOeQruk Is that Carnival? I love it anyway. And 【collector】! I'm really excited now.

No, it was a band effort during the tour with lynch. apparently. I just mean the sung melody, he's the one who thinks of those. And [collector] is Yuu's doing.

Yeah, it was played in the niconico radio show thing yesterday. Gotta admit this is the least excited I've been over a Merry song in... well ever. I'm happy they're happy, but I don't want the music to get too happy. And Gara's clearly been listening to too much 鴉 for his own good. But according to people who've been to the pre-listening events they've held, [collector] is more メリー and the other two songs are Nero's, so I'm looking forward to those. I love his songs.

That's why it's silly to judge popularity based on that ranking. Record sales in general have gone down A LOT in recent years. If you look at the ranking and number of appearances on the charts, it's stayed pretty much the same, even though the number of units sold is way smaller. That's because everyone's sales are getting smaller.

Yeah, it was perfect. But 4 new songs! I just hope someone goes to the Zepp live and shares.

The bonus track on the live-limited is Garaoke, not karaoke. Meaning an acoustic cover by Gara of some famous song. They've been playing such recordings as background music after lives since forever, and have like a million songs recorded, so who knows what it'll be. Hope it's a song by some female artist, he sounds so lovely on those. And they are definitely still making that proper DVD of 6days, it said in their email that this is just a little thing preceding that, so no worries!

Another wannabe Merry! Aww. Taste of VK is improving.

Yes, it just wouldn't be complete without Suehiro Maruo artwork. Good for them though, love his work.

Has this band always been idolizing Merry or is this some recent phenomenon? How cute. Japanese Crusher is not only ripping off Japanese Modernist but the Trash Mix as well. Now that's thorough. PgXxVW3AyNc LOL, need to hear the rest of this album.

Oh yay! Looking forward. It's funny how their album was literally everywhere while I was in Japan. Any random lifestyle store with a little music section and it was always there at the front.

Willer Express has a great site in English and you can pay with credit card. I was thinking of taking their night buss but then I figured I can't sleep in a buss anyway, and didn't wanna miss a night's sleep at the time, so took a day bus instead. Which is like 9 hours, but it was a nice rest after all the walking and seats had screens for movies. It's less than half the price of the slowest shinkansen, which is pretty expensive, even with Puratto Kodama Economy Plan! But if one plans to buy a railpass and use it, it should be a lot cheaper than individual tickets anyway.

Asaki and Full also had an event with their respective bands last month called 『Solo Solo GUNIW Tell Miracle』 and together they played... En: -Guniw Tools- 01.Looser Sugar 02.SOUP 03.Chain Drug 04.TIN MAN'S HALF CIRCUIT 05.ヨモギの心 06.Fancy Pink Here's a vid of them talking about it in case someone missed it: 5UPmaW3WVY0 They should just get back together. All three of them!

OMG WHAT?! OMG. I love them.

Merry of course. Because they're very Japanese, yet don't truly belong to any scene. Their sound is kind of in between everything, but not random at all, because they know what they are doing. It's retro, yet modern. And nothing else sounds like it. Seconding the Guniw Tools too, but they are long gone, so it's a bit outdated.

Severe boredom made me go Youtube this thing. Horrid. Why is Ruki a vocalist again? His clean singing voice makes my skin crawl and his growling makes Satsuki sound like a pro. And he can't make a pleasant melody to save his life. Baffling. Guitars have a few nice moments, but once a solo or something of the sort comes along it's back to sounding like 1985. And the songs go nowhere as usual.

Good to hear!

After letting my feelings on this settle a little, all I can say is I love everything. All the new songs are great, couldn't pick a favourite, though ザァーザァー won't stop giving me chills. The flow of the album is just beautiful, really should be listened to all the way through. Like... how ザァーザァー, which is about Daisuke passing way, goes into Fleeting Prayer, which is a requiem. Written before his death, but Gara sang it for him in their first live after the fact. And then -sabbat- starts the "LP B-side" and we get 3 very Merryish songs, Skull not sounding out of place in the least even though it's the first song they ever wrote as a band. Somehow it connects seamlessly with Yakou via Gara's sheep counting, and then there's Crisis Moment, another "new MERRY" song, which is similar in theme to Yakou except with increasing desperation. Then there's a 3-song varied punk excursion. Shoudoku is perfect and Kenichi's playing in it so distinct. And finally SWAN, which is written for another person close to the band who passed away. First "magnificent ballad" they've made. I'm not a ballad person at all in general, but it's stunning. The drums are the highlight for me. Despite being sad it ends on a positive note with "Your night will turn into dawn..." and then there's a beautiful -dawn- at sea. Oh and I must make a note about the Type B DVD. The acoustic versions of Crisis Moment and Yakou are even more gorgeous live than on CD, and everyone who's still pining after retrock Merry (as if they're not still retro) should hear Mayonaka. Songs don't get more perfect than that. Maybe they'll put it as a B-side one day, though it sounds better live I'm sure. Great album. Thank you, Merry.

Ohhh, it's that song! First I ever heard from them. Sounding good!

Yeah and wine is the new water. Can't wait! Hope they're not a one-album wonder.

Merry aren't "jazzy" or "bluesy" per se apart from a couple of odd tracks. Mostly it's just kayoukyoku, which minus their punkiest oddest tracks is ever-present, because that's what they do, fuse kayoukyoku with punk and metal in order to make nostalgic sounding modern rock. It's completely different from VK bands making random "1920's hot jazz/1940's swing abortion"s, as Herpes so aptly put for once, in order to stay true to the genre-juggling, which has been made the selling point of VK since they don't have the skill to do any one thing properly.

Instrumental. All very different though. And the kids' choir is in SWAN.

That's a good question actually. But they upped a recording of the pre-listen for the CORE members who couldn't watch (as in most of them), and everything sounds A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I love this fucking band so fucking much I can't even... stop swearing, fuck! Look forward!

Well the CORE pre-listen thingy failed quite epically, so we'll see what happens on Sunday. In other news they played "finale" on Beat Shuffle earlier today and it's very pretty! Lovely guitar work.