Karma’s Hat

Legit never heard of whatever you edited there

Lycaon, Black Swan and Rono Cro for feb through march All I need now is a new rin and I'm all set

Who writes their shit? From what I've heard it's Soan and him leaving pretty much translates to disbandment?

I spent the bulk of this year listening to 20th century works, Scriabin and Schönberg being the most frequently spun as all time favorites. Dabbled a lot into recent compositions early in the year but I struggle to recall a lot of them and certainly deleting my last.fm again doesn't help things. I'm already old enough for years to blend in together and 2013 and 2014 are badly interjected in my memory. Mozart's Mass and some Mahler symphony I saw in performance this year. Latter wasn't all that with the queer acoustics of the new Music Centre they built in Helsinki and I have fonder memories of the dinner I had earlier even though I do like Mahler. Later in the year I went back a century for a while and I even took some Haydn to my parents house for Christmas, but as always with Haydn I couldn't be arsed to listen to it. Instead I heard the same tape of my Grandfather's church musics over and over since mother insisted on having it as background music at every single meal and from what I heard through the questionable audio system it sounded peculiar enough for me to rip and upload so i can get it at home. I think it's the only recording of him we have other than a VHS of Hamlet and that's sad. It's actually disturbing to hear the tone of his talking voice through the operatics lolol.

Just paid 36 bux for the new Lycaon and having that shit fedex'd to me first thing. I wish it would have included a poster with Yuuki's flawless new look because I would have had that shit laminated on my front door. Saviors of visual kei.

Either Gauze or Macabre depending on the day. Very sparingly return to any post-Kisou material and even those few times usually tend to lead to not much more than disappointment and further violation of my childhood. Recently I found out that I couldn't even stand Uroboros anymore and that was probably all I listened to back in 2009 lol.

This band is enraging. Is there like some really good reason for these fanclub only releases? Is this leftover material they have from the sessions of the last LP that Ao burns on super market bought discs and then releseases them through the fanclub in effort to skip paying for distribution and stuff. Well at least that they're not disbanding means that I could one day just maybe see them live.

Jeeeeeesus christ. What the fuck is wrong with you. People don't like you, either take a good long look in the mirror or live with it ( I don't have too many fans and I get by just fine ). Applies to every single turd who writes this passive aggressive garbage here on the regular.

If Nocturnal Bloodlust had a future as a metalcore band then one would have at least expected them to come up with stuff that wasn't stolen for their demos. I'm willing to go as far as to claim that everything on those is stolen from riffs to vocal melodies to that sample from Eyeless. Coincidentally I also think this is their best material along with the song they ripped off from Chelsea Grin later on lolol. Whether they became visual kei because they genuinely like it or because being a visual kei band seems to be a pretty good short term marketing decision for bands going nowhere, we will never know. However for example if any local band from where I'm from had ripped off the classics to the degree NB did, they'd be a laughing stock at gigs and on the web for sure - so re-branding is something to consider. All in all I think NB had absolutely nothing to give but relative instrumental virtuosity and that's not very rare in new metal. I also think all those bands now having metalcore tropes in their sound is nothing new under the sun. It's just like when in the early 2000's bands started having nu-metal riffs and shouty angry man vocals, now this metalcore thing is the latest fad that is transforming the visual kei landscape. In my opinon All these bands are so distinctly visual kei that they wouldn't pass off as anything else without having to alter their sound and the way they go about on a fundamental level.

Already album of the year

Agreed. My new visual kei hero along with akane and the dude who got kicked out of two bands for stealing.

I'm so lame that I laughed out loud in public when I saw that 5/5

Hnnn I'll refrain from listening to any samples if such come out but I'd kill for the cover art and tracklist right now just to have some indication of what the mood will be. Will be album of the year fosho' so I ordered

Fuck the haters new shit owns

The western interpretation of visual kei is this bastardised mix of corny melodramatic lyricism, poor low budget Gazette visuals and Linkin Park-esque musical stylings taken to an extent that the shittiest Japanese visual kei bands couldn't even begin to dream of.

lol racist Good song and album though. Quite a lot of people dislike it but it's the PN album I find myself most often returning to along with the third.

I have just listened to this album once with the second play-through going on as I'm writing this, but I'm doubtful my mind about this will change since it's Mejibray being Mejibray. Here's some notes from first impressions. How Mejibray functions is akin to a factory at this point as the releases come out consistently in consistent quality. They stay true to the form and the wheel remains un-reinvented, with most of the experimentation being rather subtle and mostly just small variations to the particular mold their songs are made from; and that said this album will not win over anyone who has disliked them in the past. The band definitely has a trademark sound courtesy of the production job, MiA's power metal infused metalcore riffage and Tsuzuku's rough and effortlessly cool vocals. All the elements they've had in the past are very much present here, and it is an album for fans and the people who come in expecting something other than just ol' bijuaru with tsuzuku & co. will be disappointed. The songs tend to feel a little samey during the 70 minute long behemoth, however this also manages to make the album feel very coherent. In the past where they would do very formulaic A-side, a little more upbeat B-side and the heavy B-side single track listings, here there's none of that "variety" as some would put it. A lot of the songs have similar paces and there's almost a complete absence of gimmick. The pacing is perfect especially with the Kisaki ballad being in the middle, though while I did certainly notice the absence of their always-quality A-sides on the second haafu, it didn't really matter too much... And in fact, to me most gripes I'd have don't really matter because I just like the sound that they have. I think the riffs are kind of corny, they recycle shit like hell and Tsuzuku is the uncrowned king poseur of the visual kei scene, but that's kind of the appeal here. Tsuzuku is as charming as ever with the choruses being a definite highlight, and to me he could make an entire album where he just recites a phone book from beginning to end and I'd probably enjoy listening to it. And as crappy as I think a lot of their riffs are, they do work for me in the context of everything. The non-single tracks while do lack the pop sensbility, are just really solid Mejibray tracks with hits and misses here and there, but I don't really care lol. I would say that overall this is some of their best material to date. There's no shit like HATE on this album which is gr8 2 ratings are stupid/5

Well, yeah of course. They do this every year. By the way would anyone happen to know the sales of the last album? There's the oricon site but I'm completely inept with using it. Most likely a new single will be announced at this live, but it's been like a little over an year since their last album so I wouldn't even care if nothing was announced.

Not particularly and I should have remembered this. I do think visual kei is the worst offender however, but it's not like bands and fans aren't labeling themselves inane shit everywhere else just for the hell of it. It does bring me comfort that no music historian will regard this post-prog shoegaze instrumental metal nonsense and just call it like it actually is musically. I do still claim that the subgenres provided here are inconsistent and nonsensical, but alas.

If looks were enough to make a subgenre then scenekidmetalcore would be a thing, along with death metal bands from the late 80's that started wearing sneakers and shorts. I don't think the fact that visual kei happens to have extravagant looks plays such a fundamental role here that it's separate from aforementioned, when the music is so similar all the time. For example ff black metal adopts some slight shoegaze influence I hardly think that's reason enough to make some sort of a subgenre. But grindcore however is a "crossover" genre and the reason it deserves a separate label is because it functions totally different from other metal genres. These bands played metal with blazing speeds, hardcore structures and had punk ethics and marketing different from most other metal bands. When a visual kei band starts wearing different kinds of hats and maybe a nu-metal riff here and there, then I think we are going overboard if that suddenly warrants a new subgenre. Again if bands being a little different from one another warrants new genres then god damn. All these visual kei bands today have the same song structures, operate faithful to the same visual kei clitches, market themselves the same way, have the same labels and ethics. How it is today is just evolution, some bands innovated and the rest followed suit. My point is that the visual kei musical tradition is so strong, the evolution so consistent with no band outrageously breaking the mold and scene so tight and that I think a million subgenres aren't warranted. Other genres do just fine without hospitalwhatever kei subgenre.

Usually these developments taking place can be tracked and then it counts as natural development within the scene. No such thing as purity and such was never claimed. Rock music is the origin and visual kei is the quirk. Bands sounding a little bit different doesn't warrant a million subgenres, whereas the differences between goth scene post-punk did warrant the added goth for distinction, because there is a substantial difference. If people really want to set visual kei into some categories then the earlier era poll is the best way to go about it. Here do you mean subgenres within modern metal, punk and indie rock? There's a rather clear cut difference between 70's punk and hardcore that followed, and indie rock is pretty much a very large umberella term that seems to vary in meaning depending on who said it and some of the subgenres within "modern metal" have great actually musical differences incorporating different types of song structures and influences. Fucking nagoya kei has the same insistence on cyclic pop song structures, hair metal heritage soloing and visual kei choruses as all other visual kei, not to mention the visual kei culture of marketing, doing shows,releasing and general ethos are very much the same. The difference in the sound is merely little tinkering with the aesthetic and this can usually be attributed to the members and labels these bands happen to share, because they tend to do that; early "nagoya" bands sound totally different from the later ones for this reason and they just all end up being visual kei that just happens to be from the same city. If having Kuroyume influence is enough to have you classified as Nagoya then bloody hell that's like most of bijuaru. Are they on a visual kei label? Do they share members with visual kei bands? Do they market themselves as visual kei? If none of the above are checked then calling it nagoya kei is fucking stupid and whoever says it is a blithering idiot. Ooh aah. As if this were so prevalent here and nowhere else that it warrants a subgenre of it's own. Granted, nagoya just might be the most acceptable out of all of these Looking different doesn't warrant your own genre god damn it. There are huge differences between subgenres in metal like metalcore, black metal, heavy metal and those differences are massive. Diaura looks, sounds and functions like a ton of other visual kei bands therefore not warranting a inane distinction that some westerner came up with in her bedroom in Arkansas. It's just done smarter anywhere else. Distinctions of sounds in Techno are usually done with cities, labels and eras and they are always consistent. Hip hop does this also by locale and era, then further distinction can be done by naming influences. There's no anywhere elese subgenre like whatever hospital kei that includes a whopping two fucking bands. Also that eroguro is a load of bollocks when the supposed originators have very sparingly had erotic or grotesque themes aside from a handful of songs, and then the two bands mentioned after it have fuckall to do with caligari either aside from being friends with the band. How long have you been in the scene, just asking? You seem to have missed all the wank when people try to pigeon hole ( as you put it! ) bands into these vapid subgenres or even make new ones out of thin air! Yet rarely one sees the same energy put into finding the most seminal releases in visual kei and the general knowledge of the origins of the sound visual kei is piss poor, so only if.

These supposed subgenres really have to be the most redundant things ever invented, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of these were just the concoctions of the western internet fanbase very much distant from the actual scene where the fads and developments of visual kei actually take place. The reason why I think these are super inane and pointless is the fact that all of these bands more or less share the same - unique I would say - musical heritage that kind of makes it obvious that they all come from the same place, but just from different eras. The sheer amount of issues, inconsistencies and differing opinions just makes this insistence on categorising bands within visual kei into various subgenres a rather pointless exercise because one could hardly ever arrive to an even a half-certain conclusion, no? There is a considerable amount of aesthetic wiggle room possible within the framework of visual kei and that's makes it more or less impossible to label most bands such and such. For example what do you do when Diaura looks somewhat oshare in one shoot and then a little kote in the next? Are we forced to invent a new redundant subgenre based mostly on visuals whenever a band takes cues from different periods and bands within visual kei? Far too many bands could never be set into any of these genres as they had their themes and music fluctuate on a far too broad of a spectrum. Unlike what some here would argue and have foolishly argued in the past, every single band in the history of music can be set to a genre or more specifically, a musical movement. Nothing happens in a vacuum existing outside of the musical tradition of the world. It's just that things aren't as strict as some would make it. Not every quirk makes something so unique and special that it requires a label of its own. Many things are simply just rock music, but then they might also be a part of a certain scene happening in some part of the world where a lot of the rock bands share specific quirks from the same specific tradition. Visual kei I'd say is one of these scenes. Even if a band adopts some metal riffage for aesthetic and keeps their visual kei trappings intact, it's still bloody visual kei. Things like this lead me to think that all these nonsensical labels and misinformation only work to deter the discussion from more fruitful avenues, like say for example tracing the musical development of visual kei as a whole. What important musical developments took place within the scene and what took place out of it? Can the supposed post-punk influence of visual kei be traced and pointed out? What bands were the first to incorporate riffs from contemporary western metal music, what were the roles of some seminal bands like Kuroyume in shaping the sound and aesthetic and so on. Mite hab been rather off topic but there you go.

I personally think generic visual kei ballads are the greatest thing under the sun so naturally I'm a fan, even though it certainly could have been a lot better. I am tempted to actually order this for some reason. I really have no idea what to except. After re-examining Messiah.bat I'm at a point where I really dislike no release from this band in its entirety, so I don't see why this would be any different and yet I remain skeptical. This is just one of those bands that you except to drop the ball at any minute.

I'm cool with these so far. As long as they keep garbage like HATE away from this album I'll probably end up being happy. Although I have to admit that after listening to these I have no recollection of anything but the growls on SERVANT lol. I swear if I went through their entire discography with thought one day I'd probably find the same riffs being recycled like fuck with little to no alteration.

Yes, and? What substantial difference would it make to the music if all these things were suddenly gone? The musical heritage and traditions of visual kei would remain intact nonetheless, and most importantly what does it matter if they cater to fangirls? Is the implication here that if visual kei ditched the aesthetic and became "serious music" catering to males in their 20's and 30's the artists then would aspire to some never before seen heights of musical integrity? Oh if finally I could take Gazette to dinner parties and church fund raisers and impress all my buddies! While OP here was being more modest than usual the folk who go about the issue, this is basically what was being said here: "I am ashamed of listening to music with musicians who don't look acceptable and only if they could ditch the aesthetic and move on to make serious real music!". The real irony in this usually is that the people who do move on from visual kei usually go to no greener pastures and instead masturbate over some awful garbage like metal bands fresh from their show at Wacken. What people seem to often disregard is that no musical movement is void of extra-musical bells and whistles and musicians of all of them tend to fit a certain image often ascribed to the people who play the sort of music that they do. As if everything from indie rock to punk and bloody witch house didn't have a carefully thought out image to fill, and the reason why this is, is that the artists prefer it that way. If it weren't all about the looks then why do all the bands of particular scenes look exactly same? It is the culture which has developed hand in hand with the music itself, and they are inseparable. I can only deduce that people who would prefer their visual kei in backwards caps and cargo shorts are tasteless ingrates insecure about their own image.