doombox

Artist: coldrain Album: UNTIL THE END Score: coldrain are fighting for international attention, but are they ready? Hailing from Nagoya, coldrain is a five piece band that over the last few years has found itself stepping out of Japan's alternative rock scene and into the global post hardcore market. Most recently, they've spent their time recording with notorious hit-maker David Bendeth. coldrain are the type of band who hit the ground running seven years ago and have no visible intent on stopping any time soon.

coldrain crack open this mini album with some stereotypical teen angst lyrics on "AWARE AND AWAKE". Moving past that, the music has a nice groove to it. The time-signature changes and the transitions from heavy verses to arena-rock choruses show small hints of the band's diversity. However, the entire song is quite cookie cutter, predictable, and falls into mediocrity. I can imagine this serves well as an introduction to new listeners who may not know quite what coldrain are capable of. It's wrapped in an easy to grasp package with all the mainstays of mainstream metalcore virtues. If you enjoyed this song, then the rest of the album will bode well for you, but if you're long-time fan, it might leave much to be desired. "EVOLVE" blasts you in the face with much more intricate guitar work straight away. Just when you expect to hear a standard post-hardcore chorus, the song teases you with a sludgy bridge first, which at least is a step in the right direction. This track shows more diversity in the first minute than the previous track en masse and sounds infinitely more brutal- partially due to Katsuma's solid double bass drum work. "AWARE AND AWAKE" sounds whiny and weak in comparison. Lyrically, "YOU LIE" treads familiar territory that other songs on this album have already covered, but it's much more emotional and bears a stronger alternative rock influence that gives contrast to the bridges and breakdowns. This song proves that sometimes less is more, and band's needn't reinvent the wheel to remain poignant and connect with the audience.

 
"FADE AWAY" has a fun, fast-paced, bouncy feel and is the high point of this EP, even if the lyrics are contrary to the atmosphere. This feels like the major crowd pleaser on the record and could easily fuel some fierce circle pits. It also carries the album's most infectious chant-along mantra, "until the end, you never learned, you never learned what it means to love". The band 'chooses their moments', so to speak, with the sparing breakdowns to retain a strong momentum throughout the song. They do a good job of keeping things from becoming monotonous by injecting a monstrous breakdown instead of the default pop formula ending that repeats the chorus into oblivion. Opening with an emotive, squealing guitar, "MARCH ON" is another strong showing. This track ushers in some restrained verses and continues the album's theme of chanted vocals, making this song's title easy to remember. The song builds on solid guitar work and explodes into machine gun riffing before the breakdown (which is unfortunately located at the exact same place as the previous song). The interesting guitar effects from the intro return to add dimension to the end and transitions nicely to the next song. "HOUSE OF CARDS" starts slow and sultry, with a lonely resonating bass line and a delayed piano effect that sounds both haunting and seductive. Drums fill in the hollows of the second half, and by the time the instruments have gelled together, most of the song has already passed you by. The last chorus feels like it slips through your fingers, all too soon, as it returns itself to an echoing wisp of notes. Normally I take issue with ending mini albums on somber notes, but this one leaves us with a great cliffhanger for the next release.

 
UNTIL THE END does as much right as it does wrong and it's hard to say who I would specifically recommend this release to when it comes down to new or old fans. They did the smart thing and tacked these songs onto the deluxe edition of their previous album, The Revelation, for international fans. The variety in the tracklist feels like the band wanted to show all of their strengths in the short number of tracks, but it also brought some glaring weaknesses to light. As for strengths, it really plays on Masato being one of the few English singing Japanese vocalists who was raised bi-lingual from birth. His English is about as perfect as you'll find in this scene. The band has a great pop sensibility and knows how to change with the times; being one of the few bands that has actually gotten heavier as they've gained popularity. Regardless, the major weakness of this album is the stale and formulaic songwriting. One of the pitfalls of having good pop sensibilities is the double-edge of sticking to the cookie cutter format of pop songs. The moments when this album gambles on mixing up that formula are when it truly starts kicking some ass.

 

I feel like Girugamesh stopped doing it for me because at the beginning of their career (circa Reason for Crying) their music felt fresh and way more energetic than it is now. I feel like it just got old. And the new image they embraced after Go doesn't help any Oddly enough I enjoy Satoshi's side project a lot more. Sorry I if got a bit off-topic

"廃人バンド(haijin band)" SET-LIST at 2014/11/01:
 
01.泥(doro)
02.Scapegoat
03.MASTER
04.Vertigo
05.EVE
06.meet again
07.Instead of ache
08.ナイフ(knife)
09.罠(wana)
10.ALKALOID
11.an eternity
12.奈落の底(naraku no soko)
 
 
"ROUGE" SET-LIST at 2014/11/01:
 
01.シ・ク・マ・レ・タ・ト・キ
02.insomnia
03.Jesus phobia
04.アネモネ
05.Queen
06.白い闇
07.プロトタイプな凍えた雨と、痂だらけの羊達
08.めざめのうたげ
09.pa・ra・no・i・a
10.cry for the moon

Ok everyone, I apologize for the extremely short notice, but I'm scheduling a plug session for tomorrow, Sunday Novemer 2nd @ 8PM - 10PM UTC.
 
I think this will be our first actually scheduled plug session. So depending on how it goes, we can determine if it's something we want to implement regularly. Hope to see you all there! ^^
 
You can use this link to convert your timezone: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

10 years in the biz and girugamesh are still churning out albums for the masses.

With the recent release of their last mini-album "Gravitation" still making waves, I thought it'd be a good idea to talk about a couple of their previous works.

Just like the previous TGAD, l want to hear why you like these albums, or why you don't, and how they compare to each other in your library.

Don't be afraid to really dig into these albums and pick them apart. I'd love to read some in-depth analysis in these threads.

Here are today's challengers:

 

   vs   

As always, be kind to each other, please. The last time was great, let's keep it up!

Monster, because I'm able to embrace change

As long as it's like their last single, I'm down.

FEAR FROM THE HATE new mini album "RETURNERS" will be released at 2014/12/03 (1,620yen)
 
[track list]
01.～The First Cry～
02.MEBIUS
03.Silverwalker
04.King Boy & Queen Girl
05.Alice
06.～The Last Word～
07.Human VS Creature
 
 
Gt.Takuya(ex-NAINE) & Dr.Tomoya(ex-FEAR FROM THE HATE-->TRANSLATIONS) have commenced to act as their support since their live at Shibuya VUENOS at 2014/10/25

There's been a few other pretty "big" vk bands who have done this. They could just be shopping for a new label. MUCC didn't stop releasing music when they went from Universal to Sony. Hopefully that's all this is. Not that I'm a huge HERO fan, but I could really make due without another disbandment announcement this year.

I can't look at Scarlet Johansson in a role where her character's name is Motoko Kusanagi, unless they always call her "The Major". Which is just stupid. My suspension of disbelief only goes so far. If GitS got the whitewash treatment, how many people on the main cast are going to get whitewashed and have awkward character roles and possibly badly mangled names in an attempt to sound more "American"? Would everyone they deal with be Asian and have their names changed, or are we going to do a "Wolverine" and have the main character be white and everyone else be Asian?
How do you deal with keeping the thematic content and artistic tone of Ghost in the Shell if you change it's location? That's changing the story!

I really wanted to like Jupiter but I think maybe just a few songs are enjoyable other wise they sound boring and generic.  I know people probably hate to hear this, but I really miss Versailles and Kamijo is seriously the shit right now, I hope he continues to kick ass.  Zin's voice does always sound weird and off, I've noticed, probably why I'm beginning to not enjoy them as much.
 
Anyways, great review! 

Didn't use enough of that CRaZY*ShaMPoO to wash off the dad aroma 

new band "DADAROMA" will commence their formal activities at their one-man live "DADAROMA" at Shinjuku RUIDO K4 at 2015/01/11
 
"DADAROMA" members:
Vo.よしあつ(yoshiatsu) (ex-Since1889-->Crazy★shampoo)
Gt.太嘉志(takashi) (ex-NAINE(Shiki))
Ba.朋(tomo) (ex-Clarias.-->ReViel(support)-->LucaRia-->SUPER BOYS)
Dr.裕介(yuusuke) (ex-Quinstet-->NAINE(JOL))
 

 

I didn't really get into either album all that much, but after listening to Monster again just last night, this is what I can say.
I don't remember much of it (I was awake enough too).
I haven't listened to Music for a good 2 years and I still remember most songs off of it.
 
Even though it fell short in my opinion, Music still had pretty catchy chorus'/break downs with songs like 'evolution', 'Break Down', 'Ultimate 4', 'asking why', and (to a certain extent) 'ishtar'. It was a re-hash of their Self-Titled with more digital flair while still keeping the catchines (Heck, I remember NOW better than Monster)
 
The only track Monster had me like was 'antlion pit' (although 'Incomplete' and the singles had pretty catchy chorus'. Just not my cup of tea).
Throughout the album I remember there being really cool riffs or electronic bits, but no real hooks or chorus' that, like Ito said, were memorable. Because of that it's difficult to put identities to individual songs. 
In the spirit of Halloween, it's more like a bag of mixed candies: It doesn't really matter what you pick up because they all start to taste the same. Except for the King-Sized candies some people give out. You keep those in a separate box. That's like 'antlion pit'. So basically, Halloween for Monster sucked and it only got one King-Sized candy.
Maybe better luck next year.

Aya! Man I miss her.
 
01.GNz-WORD – Nightmare Report
02.浅井健一 – DEAD ROCK STAR
03.Fact – Devil's Work
04.ACID – Under the shadows
05.Chariots – Killing Advisory
06.Hare-brained Unity – Evil Dance
07.Pop Shuvit – Freakshow (feat.Dandee From Silk Sounds)
08.D'espairsRay – 13 -thirteen-
09.lynch. – EVILLY
10.Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas – Stray in Chaos
 
Evil Dance is awesome, but I love 13 -thirteen-. Freakshow is actually a pretty cool song too hahah.
 
 
 
this is my Halloween playlist, my media player didn't just decide to be evil. >D

I've been gettin' into Verbal Jint lately !
 
1. Dead Kennedys - Your Emotions
2. Hot Snakes - XOX
3. Misfits - Nike A-Go-Go
4. the GazettE - 黒く澄んだ空と残骸と片翅
5. The Birthday - ひかり
6. 伊集院幸希 (Ijuuin Yuki) - 彼女は金曜日 (feat. RUMI)
7. RIP SLYME - Bubble Trouble
8. Sigh - Corpsecry - Angelfall
9. DIR EN GREY - MASK
10. 亜矢 (Aya) - メーデー

10 years in the biz and girugamesh are still churning out albums for the masses.

With the recent release of their last mini-album "Gravitation" still making waves, I thought it'd be a good idea to talk about a couple of their previous works.

Just like the previous TGAD, l want to hear why you like these albums, or why you don't, and how they compare to each other in your library.

Don't be afraid to really dig into these albums and pick them apart. I'd love to read some in-depth analysis in these threads.

Here are today's challengers:

 

   vs   

As always, be kind to each other, please. The last time was great, let's keep it up!

"STRUGGLE" [track list]
01.STRUGGLE
02.Versus feat.KIHIRO(LOKA)
03.ALIVE
04.アッパーグライダー(upper glider)(Struggle ver.)
05.Live it up!!!
06.fools
07.プラネットスカーズ(planet scars)
08.nano gear(English ver.)
 

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22292/1/sci-fi-film-interstellar-leads-to-new-scientific-discovery?fb_action_ids=10204893473479448&fb_action_types=og.likes
 
 
 

Crazy nightmare where an evil spirit possessed a life size doll (I remember specifically it had no eyes in it). I woke up as it was approaching my bed after it figured out I was somehow seeing it in my dream.
My dreams never make sense when I try to explain them later. But I was pretty freaked out. Lol.

MUSIC vs MONSTER
Despite being a girugamesh fan for only one year, I'd have to go with MUSIC. 
Let me do a song VS song comparison. 
----
-INTRO- vs Intro | -INTRO- takes the case in my option because what else is better than a compilation of electronic fast paced beats ending with a slowed down scream.  
 
Break Down vs Drain | Break Down goes for this one because not only was this the first girugamesh PV I saw but it was the first time I saw turntables incorporated into a Japanese band. Don't ge me wrong though, Drain has its good points but "Break Down"  was the first song I ever heard by girugamesh, <3 a classic.

ULTIMATE 4 vs VOLTAGE | VOLTAGE wins. ULTIMATE 4 was good but "VOLTAGE" puts in some type of monster like growls? distortions? heavy drumming is a plus in this song too.

FREAKS VS INCOMPLETE | FREAKS. I mostly like it for the intro, seems that it'd start with something that'd be similar to a warning sign or alarm. Correct me if I'm wrong but Shuu did a good part with the "FREAKS" part of the song.
 
Zantetsuken -MONSTER ver.- vs Angry juice | The intro to "Angry juice"  is good but I liked "Zantetsuken" as a single, the monster version wasn't too good in my opinion, too different in riffs. 
 
antlion pit vs evolution | Sad to say from my pov, it's a tie. 
 
Resolution VS -INST.- | Resolution.

BAD END DREAM vs puzzle | "BAD END DREAM" was good and all but too many distortion or animal screams, growls, whatever you wish to call it. I did like how "-INST.-" transitioned into "puzzle" though, that was nice. Winner = puzzle. 
 
Asking why vs Live is Life | Live is Life. 

Zecchou BANG!! vs DEAD WORLD | DEAD WORLD. The combination of Nu-metal and electro really kicks in around 2:10 of the song which makes it more favorable. 

Another way vs Ishtar | Ishtar seemed to be a small building point for the final track, "enishi". Another way won this one, the start of the song has a good momentum but then the song gets a bit annoying then it re-gains its momentum. 

ALONE vs enishi | enish no contest. 
 
So far my favorite album by them is GO

Well at the time I used to really be into them I loved the digital effects xD I suppose my fave songs are puzzle, Ishtar, enishi, Smash, Melody and Omaeni sasageru minikui koe (but then the last three already appeared in Reason for Crying so nothing new there ). 
Actually I also liked the songs on 13's Reborn. Suppose it's not even second then.

Although I don't dig any of the albums, I'll have to go with music. It's way more various both in mood and composition. The thing about MUSIC was that the album essentially another girugämesh, just with a few more electronics added. Melancholic, aggressive and sad songs alike, I'd say that this album is amongst the most virtuous ones in giru's discography, and not only that, the compositions were good. No song sounded like the other, no melody felt overused.
 
Monster lacks in basically everything MUSIC is good at. Compositions feel lazy and repetitive, the vocal tracks are so predictable it's incredible.. and there's way too much electronics and autotune for my taste. So.. my vote goes for MUSIC.
 
..And yeah, I also think Reason of Crying is amongst their best outputs, if not THE best.
 
Favourite tracks on MUSIC: puzzle, イシュタル, asking why, お前に捧げる醜い声
Facourite tracks on MONSTER: MONSTER, VOLTAGE, Antlion Pit

To me Reason for Crying is still the best thing Girugamesh produced to date, sorry. But I guess Music comes second.