doombox

Are they a MH couple?!?!
 
BTW, another self-portrait from my time in Oregon Coast.
 

vk graveyard: 1
 
san's career: Ø

I'm with Zeus, got into it around '99. I heard Loudness a couple of years prior because some of the resident metalheads at the record store I worked at went crazy when some came in. However, they aren't vk anyway so that doesn't count. But I think learning about them made me open minded about listening to visual kei when a friend gave me that CD of Dir en grey, X Japan, and Malice Mizer down the road.
 
  Hey, don't feel bad. I think it's great people are still getting into it every day! New listeners keep the scene from dying out so you are very important.

What should I do. . . 
I just began intensely listening to vk music since past few months.
Before that, I might listen to some vk songs when those became the anime theme song, or when my favorite musician took a part of them, but I didn’t really know whether those were vk songs or not

okay, see you later (if I can make it lol)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the plug session is 3am your time.
 
 
It's pretty lax. I do think we're looking for predominant female vocals but it's for fun so just do the best you can come up with. I don't think anyone will complain if a male part in the song pops up here and there. 

I guess that's the thing, isn't it? It used to be a subculture, and now it's following pop culture. I miss the older styles a lot too they were what made visual kei attractive to me in the first place. I especially miss the bands that centered around creepy and/or grotesque concepts. 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the plug session is 3am your time.
 
 
It's pretty lax. I do think we're looking for predominant female vocals but it's for fun so just do the best you can come up with. I don't think anyone will complain if a male part in the song pops up here and there. 

What year did you start listening to VK?

To submit a poll for the MH POLL OF THE WEEK, P.M. @CAT5 with your poll question, choices, and state whether it's mutiple choice or not.

This. I got so many Korn vibes from Marrow lol.
 
I voted Vulgar, but tbh I really enjoyed ARCHE and maybe with more listens it has the chance of taking over.

Thanks, ender!
Very eclectic mix of "thanks for these" artists yourself. Lemme know if you need help finding any of them!
 
Yay, I'm so happy! The Ijuuin Yuki album is uploaded here, ready for your enjoyment. I'm also glad NEGOTO and Scenarioart piqued your interest! 88Kasyo is definitely an acquired taste, but a rewarding one once they finally "click" they with you! I'm checking out your (extremely well-formatted) list tomorrow, d00d!
 
So far, they are a very consistent band in quality! I hope they can get some more fans!
 
Thanks, bruh! The Ventla album is here, btw!

That band would be RHYOLITE. They announced at their formation that they would break up in three months. Don't quite remember if that was a session band or an actual band though.

Introduced to me by my lil sis,
 

 
I've just tried 'em, and I'm loving 'em. 

Your list just made me really angry that I totally forgot to check out that Plastic Tree album this year. OTL I had a feeling it was going to be good! I will definitely make sure that gets in my download list. 
 
And of course totally co-signed on In This Moment. BBW is such an awesome song!!
 
It's interesting, that like... I knew you liked pop music but I'm really surprised to see just how much. I feel like I've seen a whole new side to you with this list. xD It's so cool how varied the whole review team's taste is. 

I'm glad you found so many things you were interested in from my list! Don't forget to tell me what you end up liking more than others at some point.
Also about Run the Jewels, try this video below.

 
 
If you like Tokyo Jihen don't skip out on Shiina's solo stuff! Same vocalist but slightly different style, but more than enough for fans of TJ to love.
 
 
This year I definitely felt like I expanded into different genres more than ever before. While I was doing this list I realized that I covered more genres this year without trying than I did in all my last three years. I wouldn't have heard of Hail Spirit Noir if you hadn't pointed me in their direction and I was already familiar with Martyrdöd (although I was late to listening to Elddop this year). The other two are definitely new.
I haven't heard any of Dead Congregation's other releases because I have to be in the mood to listen to them. But when I am, I don't mind the drums for some reason.

Definitely praise to the html overlord for a sweet looking layout! Seriously, nice job there.
Nice list too.  Everyone digs such a wider range of music than I pegged them for, it's really awesome to see that.
 
Co-signed: Wagakki band That was just such a cool and unexpected release this year. Glad to see it's still included here. Though, I was pretty sure it would be.   Likes: 101A, Animals As Leaders I had no idea there was a 101A release this year!! I need to get my hands on that one right away. And AAL put out a great album this year. I was really close to including TJOM in my list too, but ended up really trimming down my international artists. After seeing your list now, though... I wish I didn't.    Thanks for these: Clark, Hail Spirit Noir, Jizue, Lost Ubikyst in Apeiron, Martyrdöd, Tech N9ne Hail Spirit Noir have a nice doom-ish feel about them. I definitely need to look into them more. Whoa! Dat Lost Ubikyst in Apeiron tho. I was hooked from that first note just about. Also need more of that artist in my life. And Tech N9ne, CAT5's been playing him in plug and getting me hooked.    Also, not sure if it's just me but the Run the Jewels vids are blocked by SME so I can't watch them. 

a crowd of rebellion new maxi single "The Crow" will be released under Warner Music Japan at 2015/03/04 (2 TYPE)
 
limited edition (1,620yen) will include CD+rubberband, and regular edition (1,200yen) will include CD only
 
[track list]
01.The Crow
02.REBELLIOUS BEHAVIOR
03.A Malice Of Rider

Awesome thread my friend. I'll have to check out all these PVs, I never seem to watch many at all... but, this one, god damn, I could watch it every single day of every single hour, minute and second.
WINNER FOREVER~

I'm curious what everyone's favorite music videos were for 2014? I've been running a jrock video blog for a couple of years now and I figured I'd give a short list of the top 10 most popular from there, and everyone else could share their favorites too? Feel free to talk about the choices and posts too!
 
# 10. Silent Siren - “Lucky Girl” 
# 09. SuG - “B.A.B.Y.”
# 08. kinoko teikoku - “CHRONOSTASIS”
# 07. DADAROMA - “oboreru sakana”
# 06. BIOSPHIA - “SUISEN”
# 05. Lycaon - “Akujo no bishou”
# 04. coldrain - “You Lie”
# 03. MEJIBRAY - "RAVEN"
# 02. TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA - “Wake Up! feat. ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION”
# 01. Wagakki Band - “Senbonzakura”
 
The number one video pretty much smashed everything else we posted this year with over 400 reblogs. But Tokyo Ska was a really strong second with over 100+! But I think Wagakki Band is a good top to the list because the pv really was quite beautiful. (o_~)

Since everyone seems to be scared of CAT5's peace and happiness mod color I'll revive the topic again.

One of the problems with sustaining visual kei is that future musicians grew up enjoying the music of their time. This may not sound bad but the trend is for each generation of musicians to have a narrower and narrower experience until the genre becomes nothing but repeated cliches and tropes. We've already witnessed that happening with visual kei. It is the occasional person who comes into the scene with outside experiences and ideas that brings new ideas into the scene and they are either hugely successful or rejected entirely.
 
Visual kei is definitely at that point where the entire scene revolves around repeated cliches and tropes. Of course there are the outlier bands that play unorthodox music (and are either completely ignored or hugely successful) but there is definitely a strong preference towards metalcore / deathcore mixed with pop. But since visual kei bands tend to be influenced by one another, few bands can truly expand on the sound. They either rehash ideas or borrow riffs from Western artists and hope that nobody notices.
 
It's the new bands that don't play metalcore that are the true saviors of visual kei. Visual kei needs some new ideas and these bands are the ones brave enough to play something different. Whenever one of these bands comes across a winning combination of ideas it's co-opted by other visual kei bands and expands the scope of the whole scene by just a little bit. The surge of metalcore as the preferred genre of visual kei music within the last ten years (and the surge of additional electronic elements within the last three years) is proof in itself!
 
So what's my opinion? If we look back at the last twenty years, there have been two gigantic shifts in sound. They occur roughly every ten years. Now would be the time where a gigantic shift in stylistic influences would take place yet I don't see the signs of it happening. Visual kei needs to switch it up to stay relevant and it needs to do something to regain the identity it's been slowly losing. Bands have beat the metalcore / pop combo to death for so long that we're now flogging bedrock, and a lot of bands just look like mannequins for tacky clothing instead of using the aesthetics to tie into their concepts.

I'm waiting for a band to come in and change the entire game. I see a few contenders here and there but no one has struck gold yet.

my own view:
i can't help but wonder to what extent these alleged 'metalcore-vk bands' describe themselves as such, and how much of it is in fact ascribed or attributed to them by people outside vk (especially foreign fans). from what i know metalcore as a genre/scene/whatever is hardly invoked self-reflexively by vk bands. when a new band forms, they typically describe their sound in much more amorphous terms (e.g. "heavy", "melodious", etc.) on their twitter/website; and ditto during interviews, in magazines, etc. i haven't seen 'metalcore' being used by band members often, and in the rare occasion that it surfaces, chances are the term isn't being used in the strict sense as an equivalent of its western counterpart.
pushing this point further: for me, each time we attempt to transpose a term that originates in one tradition to identify an analogous phenomenon in a disparate tradition, there's always this problem of "incommensurability" since different traditions inevitably have their own historical influences, assimilated elements, cultural roots, etc. of course that isn't to say that metalcore-vk isn't a meaningful label - i guess it's still very useful for gesturing towards a particular kind of 'vk sound' amongst many, and it's perfectly natural to approximate this sound using a term (e.g. "metalcore") that's familiar to most of us. but i'll have to agree with Jigsaw that it's a much weaker sense of the word than it might seem to imply, and perhaps even one that in all likelihood wouldn't make the same kind of 'sense' to the vk members themselves as it would to us. (even here we run into a problem, since "us" is not a homogeneous group at all. the subgenre debates on Mh are the best evidence that even we can't quite agree on what "metalcore" is XD)

^ In my opinion (or view/experience), you shouldn't take the term "metalcore" here literally. Most of the bands in question would be laughed at, I'm sure, if they were to present their music to those who listen to metalcore on a daily basis (and I'm not talking about the appearance of the bands here, of course). What most vk bands do in this "metalcore" category sounds more like watered-down modern metal, or what a 6-year-old's concept of a "heavy br00tal" riff is. So you have to take this categorization with a grain of salt I guess. Unless we're talking about, like, NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST who play kinda legit (but still kinda bland) 'core music injected into vk.
 
Also it's a bit problematic cuz most of these bands dabble in other influences too and aren't so one-dimensional as one would think. You might notice that I didn't mention any bands by name cuz sometimes I'm baffled / uncertain about this "metalcore vk" thing. XD

My thing is, everyone keeps throwing metalcore in as the main vk influence now, but either I don't listen to enough visual bands these days or I just happen to listen to ones mainly not using it because I don't hear all that much metalcore. I hear metal mostly. I hear an occasional breakdown but not enough to warrant it called metalcore to me. I'm not saying anyone here is wrong, but can someone give me a list of all these bands supposedly using metalcore as their main influence? Because everytime someone says that I'm just like... who are you listening to? I can only say I've heard a turn to metalcore/hardcore riffs in the very last 2-3 years from bands like Arlequin, girugamesh, and Nocturnal Bloodlust... I've heard MUCC and DADAROMA use a single metalcore riff as a song opener and I don't really count that as going metalcore. And even counting those, it feels like a small percent? 

A kiss for Jersey's 2nd from the left +  2nd from and farthest right aaaayyyy

Japanese: Rock/Pop
 
 

about tess - Shining
tags: rock, pop, alternative
 


 
 

Age Factory - 手を振る
tags: rock
 


 
 

asobius - pray&grow
tags: rock
 


 
 
 

back number - ラブストーリー
tags: rock, pop, ballad
 


 
 
 

Hello Sleepwalkers - Masked Monkey Awakening
tags: rock
 


 
 
 

UNLIMITS - アメジスト
tags: rock, pop punk
 


 
 

和楽器バンド - ボカロ三昧
tags: vocaloid, neo-traditional, folk, pop
Samples: 天樂 & 千本桜