shizukasou

For some reason I would've liked to see Tatsurou singing with Psysalia Psysalis Psyche (dunno why, really)...

Quiet because, 'Shizuka' = Quiet. : p

some LQ pics of Touru taken at yesterday's show. source: http://bluevelvet-bluevelvet.tumblr.com/
 

don't hit me! My Italian is not good!

Welcome on board! Nice band list, enjoy your stay! ;3

Ravviviamo un po' questo topic! Ciao a tutti! Pensavo non ci fossero più compatrioti attivi qui, mi sento meno sola xD

Now that I think about it, there should be a post for Italian-speaking users in the International Lounge section! Let's talk there sometimes if you guys want >w<

While Uroboros stays up there as their best work with its overall organicity and ecstatic feel, Arche sure comes across as a very close second to me.
I, too, think that the first part flows waaay better than the second one and that some of the bonus tracks should have been in the regular version (but that won't make me spend 80 euros on the album, sorry you lovely old farts), yet this project pictures exhaustively how DEG can always reinvent themselves while expressing their skills both as individual musicians and as a whole. 
I also appreciated how Kyo gave up on the constant screaming, one of the things that made DSS less enjoyable to me three years ago.
So for me it's a 9/10 and a permanent stay on the hype train. 

Now that I think about it, there should be a post for Italian-speaking users in the International Lounge section! Let's talk there sometimes if you guys want >w<

Welcome from a fellow Italian! Enjoy your stay!

Incogneeto, dude... I wouldn't like to be your friend, if you're so bitter over everything. Sure, we do want everything best for ourselves, but we can't explain everything with the logic. Yeah, many people are assholes, but when you're getting something good, better appreciate it, instead of being suspicious and overanalyzing it. This kind of attitude will only make you unhappy. Shit may happen anytime, that's why you should just enjoy your present and live without regrets.

Holy crap you guys are spergin' hard about interpersonal contact. I didn't think the concept of "friends" was that complicated but... well... here we are. You guys need to get better friends if you're this jaded by humanity.

DogManX, I don't mean to offend or anything, but I think you just took the poll too seriously. Review threads are open to people apart from the staff+official reviewers so they can comment on an album, it should go without saying that the poll options can't possibly be 100-ish words long and/or express every single nuance of what every single person thinks about it. If none of them applies to you, just speak up! It's what a forum is meant for in the first place. 
(sorry for intruding :x)

While Uroboros stays up there as their best work with its overall organicity and ecstatic feel, Arche sure comes across as a very close second to me.
I, too, think that the first part flows waaay better than the second one and that some of the bonus tracks should have been in the regular version (but that won't make me spend 80 euros on the album, sorry you lovely old farts), yet this project pictures exhaustively how DEG can always reinvent themselves while expressing their skills both as individual musicians and as a whole. 
I also appreciated how Kyo gave up on the constant screaming, one of the things that made DSS less enjoyable to me three years ago.
So for me it's a 9/10 and a permanent stay on the hype train. 

If you don't agree with the poll you have the option of posting your own opinion/review in the thread. Why not simply say "It was a great album, but certainly not their best" instead of criticizing? It's kind of sad there are 5 in depth reviews there and what you took away from that post was the poll. 

While Uroboros stays up there as their best work with its overall organicity and ecstatic feel, Arche sure comes across as a very close second to me.
I, too, think that the first part flows waaay better than the second one and that some of the bonus tracks should have been in the regular version (but that won't make me spend 80 euros on the album, sorry you lovely old farts), yet this project pictures exhaustively how DEG can always reinvent themselves while expressing their skills both as individual musicians and as a whole. 
I also appreciated how Kyo gave up on the constant screaming, one of the things that made DSS less enjoyable to me three years ago.
So for me it's a 9/10 and a permanent stay on the hype train. 

Artist: Dir en grey Album: ARCHE Score: Diru's ARCHE has two of everything.
It's not at Uroboros levels of good, but ARCHE can go toe to toe with Withering to death. for third best Dir en grey album.

Dir en grey learned a very important lesson with Dum Spiro Spero, which is that sometimes less is more. Nuance and Dum Spiro Spero went together like an axe to the face. Dir en grey have been a constantly evolving band ever since their formation in 1997, but 2011's Dum Spiro Spero was an almost clean break from everything they've done up to that point. While it was an interesting experiment, listening to the band buckle under the weight of their own creative ambitions was an overbearing, unrelenting, suffocating experience. It's a positive sign that Dir en grey have stopped trying so hard to mix progressive metal with deathcore while retaining an ethereal atmosphere and complementing it with well-thought out melodies (for the most part), because the result is pretty damn pleasant to listen to.

ARCHE is their most focused effort in years. It may not be as unrestrained as Dum Spiro Spero, but it is an infinitely more listenable experience. By not trying as hard to replicate the progressive atmosphere they farted out with Uroboros in 2008, they nailed it again and perpetuated their cycle of good album/bad album. ARCHE has hints of the atmosphere explored by Kyo's side project sukekiyo with nods to styles from previous albums now and again. It's no easier to take in all at once, but I can see how Diru's interpretation goes down better with some than the abstract and sometimes plain strange vibes of sukekiyo. Songs like "phenomenon", "懐春"(kaishun) and "禍夜想" (magayasou) are great examples of when the band excels at this sound, being amongst the top tracks on the album.

It wouldn't be a Dir en grey opening without an engaging opener, and "un deux" is exactly that. It's not the tribal acoustic source field intros of previous albums but I find the more direct approach refreshing. With ARCHE clocking in at 68 minutes, unnecessary pretentious intros are not needed. The first four tracks are pretty damn good, remaining consistent in quality and mood while watching Dir en grey alternate between experimentation and straightforward melodies. It's a sound we always knew they were capable of, but only surfaced once in a blue moon with songs like "腐海" (fukai) and "蜷局" (toguro). If the album stayed this course, it would have been one killer record.

But it isn't a true Dir en grey album without some tracks that should have never made it onto the album. The first is "cause of fickleness", which tried to combine the 90's visual kei mental instability antics with the nu-sukekiyo atmosphere and failed. The result is a lame chorus, uninteresting guitar melody and a total departure from the atmosphere that was built up by the first four tracks. To make it worse, the song that follows, "濤声"(tousei), picks up right where "phenomenon" left off, which makes me question why "cause of fickleness" is here. It's the kind of basic error that should not be made after eighteen years of making music. They repeat this mistake later with "The inferno" sandwiched between promotional ballad "空谷の跫音" (kuukoku no kyouon) and album ender "Revelation of Mankind". "The inferno" is junk not worthy of further elaboration but the ballad is a nice melodic break after all the metal. It wasn't the best choice to get people excited for the album though - "Un deux", "咀嚼" (soshaku), or "鱗" (uroko) would have been better choices. "Revelation of mankind" feels like a re-interpration of Dum Spiro Spero's "流転の塔" (ruten no tou). It doesn't get quite as good as "流転の塔", but it's a solid song and ends the album on a high note.

ARCHE's biggest issue is that after two years "輪郭" (rinkaku) is still the best song, even though several contend for second place. "Sustain the untruth" slides unnoticed into the latter half of the album, remaining the most straightforward metal song on the album. It also doesn't fit in all that well but the second half of ARCHE is an identity crisis anyway. All consistency goes out the window as Diru can't decide if they want to be mysterious, straightforward, reserved, or aggressive. It hurts more than it helps and with long albums consistency is important. The silver lining in all of this is that there is no progressive behemoth like Vinushka or Diabolos to inflate the running time further and make ARCHE unbearable to sit through.

The ideas don't work as well if the execution isn't top notch, and with the removal of some tracks and rearrangement of the rest ARCHE could have been in the same league as magnum opuses Uroboros or Macabre. But for a band that's been continuously reinventing themselves for the better part of a decade to be taken as a legitimate metal band, seeing them finally embrace melody and compose without pressure to conform to "metal ideals" is great. All aspects of Dir en grey that fans adore are still here, just devoid of the sprawling, unfocused attempts of albums past.

In the future, I could see ARCHE mentioned in the same breath as VULGAR and Withering to death. as generally good Dir en grey albums, and it is definitely an album I will find myself revisiting again and again. It's just something that could have been a legendary release with a bit more time and care.

After three years since their last album, DIR EN GREY returns to the spotlight with the highly anticipated album ‘ARCHE.’ With a running track of an hour and twenty three minutes, it may appear overbearing at first but don’t feel intimidated. For an album with sixteen tracks in total, adding another seven tracks if you include the limited edition, there’s a lot to get through. But you won’t be joining the ride just because of the sheer hype. DIR EN GREY hasn’t disappointed. In fact, they’ve exceeded expectation, at least to me. For a band that has delivered every time, they’ve still managed to produce a beautifully balanced and highly addicting album this year.
 
What I can quickly bring up about this album is that its atmospheric factor is spot on. Not only do the album covers do this justice, but the opening track, ‘Un deux’ really pulls you in. With an engaging chorus and bridges, it’s structured beautifully with brilliant guitar and drum soloing. We definitely know we’re hearing the Dir En Grey we all know and love with this fine opening song. Coming in at track two is ‘咀嚼,’ and with a more melodious and steady tune to it as well as high and low notes from Kyo, it keeps the album going strong as well as nicely contrasting to the loud opener. It follows up wonderfully to ‘鱗,’ which is just as thrilling as the opener, if not more! The inclusion of ethereal choir singing caught my attention against the rougher tone of Kyo’s vocals and instruments. 
 
Now coming to my favourite album song, ‘Phenomenon’ really is phenomenal. It’s the kind of track which really shows off Dir En Grey’s eerie sound. Creepy and haunting, it stood out and kept me anticipating the rest of the album. Possibly the most disliked track from the album, ‘Cause of Fickleness’ might be a lengthy filler to most, but it’s a lot of fun and a rather random placement which breaks up the unnerving feel of the album. I found that quite appealing and a nice addition. ‘濤声’ brings us back to a gloomy mood, with an emotional and sorrowful delivery. Another track I’m addicted to as much as ‘Phenomenon’ the more I listen to it, it’s got a warm yet cold feel to it. In a way, I found this track mesmerising; it’s both depressing and comforting. This is actually how I felt throughout the whole album, caught between mixed emotions.
 
At seven, ‘輪郭’ is another lengthy track which is even more melodious as the engaging track ‘咀嚼.’ Kyo’s vocalisation is my favourite element of this track.  As you might have noticed, my favourite part of the whole album was definitely this section. But Dir En Grey keeps the energy with lovely contrasts in tone and style with each track. ‘Chain Repulsion’ is energetic and strong, even if it’s the shortest track of the album. ‘Midwife’ is highly enjoyable, and I especially adored those precious onslaughts of Kyo’s frantic shrieks and screams. What a track.
 
Even coming this far in, to track ten, the band continuously delivers contrasting tracks beside one another, some sounding brutal and unforgiving, while others are of a haunting beauty with a slower tempo and calmer mood. This made ‘ARCHE’ truly appealing and engaging to me. Stand out tracks from the later part of the album for me where the final three songs. ‘The Inferno’ is a super powerful number, while ‘Revelation of Mankind’ is a brilliant album closer and the single ‘Sustain the Untruth’ is one of their many songs I’ll return to many times. I found it difficult to stop the album when I had to, and it certainly kept me hungry for more as I continued listening. If you haven’t boarded the hype train yet, you’ll only be disappointed with yourself.
 

I can't get enough of this album for the entire week, and this is probably the first time since withering to death when it happens.
I hope it won't take them another 3 years to record a follow up, and they won't be doing self-cover releases anymore in the meantime, since nothing good typically comes from those.
my 2nd favest deg album at the moment (vulgar and wtd got stale a few years ago, although I still listen to kisou quite a lot.)

As the second to last member to join our ranks before The Great MH FreezeTM, welcome. You picked a good time to join, so I hope you like it here.

Hello and welcome! *sends a box full of cats* 

maybe learn some new words to get your point across?

I think you've already answered your own questions, huh...Such a bad thing to ask of a supposed best friend.
Unless she has deeper feelings for the guy or vice versa. Then it would make a little more sense, but still...I just think she's been a little too rude, don't mind me xD By the way yes, communication is the best way, make sure to clear this whole thing up as soon as you can. Good luck!

Hello~! It's a pleasure to meet everyone! 
My name is Monica and I am from Mexico D:
 
Well, my english is very bad ;; but, here we go
 
I never done this before in forums D:
I got into the Japanese music scene ago 8/9 years...
 
 
My favorite bands humm~
Ayabie/AYABIE ;;
Belle (new band XD) 
BVCCI HAYNES
SID
the GazettE
Dir en Grey
A9
Nightmare
DIV
Angelo
rice.
HERO
the kiddie
and more XD