Ikna

Apparently many 90s VK bands were fans of Final Fantasy IV. I have found three songs whose melodies (or parts thereof) are based on FFIV OST songs. First we have Luinspear's Veltair, which took inspiration from the Love Theme. (Jump to 04:28) La'chryma Christi's Forest sounds like the town theme (07:28). For me it was a bit hard to hear at first, but now I am sure the melodies are similiar (and someone else on youtube had the same impression) And my last find is Rephit's squall, which sounds really similiar to the FFIV main theme (08:17), especially the intro.

^they actually have had a few, but I don’t think any of the full length PVs were released anywhere. I wish they would someday release a DVD with music videos, because I really like them. They always tell stories with their PVs, which is so much more interesting than the usual “band poses around” videos.

Haven’t updated this thread since forever, hups. Well, new stuff (you can find them on my DA page too. I plan to upload some more sketches soon) Karma from AvelCain Chiaki from DEZERT (inspired by the Satsui PV)

I really like their new darker image. It was a good decision to change, because they truly rock this style.

So the Gazette have discovered Nu-Goth and Hipster goth… 3 years too late.

The eurovision songcontest actually used to be a serious competition. Many famous singers have participated in it in the past, often before they made their own breakthrough (ABBA for example. They performed waterloo for the song contest and became famous afterwards). But as many forms of entertainment and mainstream music in general, the contest has become simply a big show where only audience ratings count. A sad development, true. Not sure if I watch it this year. It’s taking place here in Vienna and I can’t really escape the advertisements, so I am already fed up with it.

Deviantart has many weird sides. Actually this musclegrowth thing isn’t even the worst (despite the lack of photoshop skillz)

Some obsessed bangyas wouldl surely eat that up, lol

Their live distros and demos are good too, I actually happened to like the demo of 黒い涙 a lot more than the rerecording on their グリーヴァ vs GRIEVA single. But I agree, Shuuen is really good. At first I didn’t like it, but it has started to grow on me and now I prefer it to their debut, which was just more of a 2010s Gauze. I am surprised no one has spotted out how their recent singles’ covers look similiar to the covers of Dir en grey’s Zan, Akuro no Oka and Yurameki singles.

I was very sceptical of these guys at first. Especially since I only expected generic nu metal guitar thrashing. I’d say the album is a decent listen, it’s not as boring as I have thought. Honestly, I can’t really agree with the statement that they sound like Dezert. Both bands seem to have a mid 00s Nu Metal influenced sound and both vocalists like to pretend being manic and hysterical, but that’s all. 「浴槽」～introduction is my fav and the only song that really sticks out on this album for me (maybe I stil need to listen to the others more). No clue how they are compared to memento mori, since I only listened to 2 songs of the latter. But this band here has potential, especially since they aren’t as repetitive and formulaic as Grieva (yet).

Lol, thanks. I have forgotten I have to hit the full editor button ^^; It seems they are quick helping you, especially over twitter, when the problem is minor. Fixing a small issue? No problem. Fixing an issue, that may take 3 days maximum, because you have to program the plug-in differently? Takes ages. What bothers me the most is how they almost never answer in the client or website problem forums. People have been rightly complaining that they often have to wonder if there is still a staff. The thing with the correct tags is a big issue. I really hate it when I have to migrate to unicode and loose all my old scrobbels. Even shiitier that recently a lot of unicode pages have been relinked wrongly. See: Ｇｈｏｓｔ was and should be ＧＨＯＳＴ I agree with all points. Especially the artist disambiguation feature, which people have been requesting basically since forever. Not sure if the staff actually promised to work on it, but it shouldn‘t be impossible to program and it would make things a lot easier, especially end all those silly wars between fans of different bands sharing the same name. Well, some people want different things from the site and are happy what they get. A lot of people here write that they don‘t need a radio streaming service, cool features or have never had any problems with scrobbling. I too could care less about the radio, I have used it maybe three times. I am using spotify now mainly for streaming (and there is even an implemention of spotify in lastfm. I am sure they could extend this feature somehow). Spotify isn‘t everyone's cup of tea either, I know, but for those who want to stream music or listen to radio stations it‘s a great alternative. However: a lot of people really liked the lastfm radio and were upset when it was gone. We, who mostly use it only for scrobbling, stats and finding new artist may be rather a minority. Te people who brought the money into the service were mostly those, who wanted to stream music. Lastf still needs money to run, hence the focus should always be on how your services can appeal to a mass of people and make them pay or donate. Sure, you can use the site for free. And maybe the streaming option isn‘t so important. I still think that lastfm need to make their service better or they won‘t last long. And yeah, I am using itunes alternatives at the moment. I am glad have some, because I won‘t downgrade or use other temporary fixes. Now itunes itself is quite the horror somtimes, but that still means that the scrobbling client should be updated regularily to work with the players it‘s intended to be compatible with. It‘s not apples fault that the lastfm staff are lazy. I too had scrobbling issues since ca. 2012. Since then the scrobbler played roulette when I wanted to scrobble my ipod and did only a few times (most often not and they were lost). Multiple scrobbles or tracks vanishing (or not scrobbling at all) are common. For a website that is all about statistics and charts it‘s actually impossible to get your listening habits accurate (except you are lucky and your client never does this shit with you).

I am surprised there is no thread like this here, since a lot of people from Mh have an account there. Those who have been scrobbling music for a while now might have noticed it: ever since Lastfm was bought by CBS the site has started to go down in quality, features and support. Now it‘s understandable that with an old age as lastfm and more and more better music streaming alternatives popping up (such as spotify) it would loose it's position on the market. But lastfm has finally reached an all time low. As a lot of news have reported, lastfm has made huge losses over the last years. And then there is the totally useless support team, who rarely fix technical issues both on the website and/or the client. At the moment hundreds of people are pissed, because they can‘t scrobble any music from the recent itunes 12.1. update. This issue was known since january, yet lastfm replied to work on this 10 days ago. So far they haven‘t updated their client and people still hang in the air. Now you could say “then just downgrade or find another player”, but temporary fixes are no real fixes. And lastfm does a terrible job, they have updated their scrobbler the last time in 2013! Such a thing shouldn‘t happen, not only because it‘s unprofessional, but it will also drive even more people away from the service. It almost looks as if they are deliberately letting this site die. I really like lastfm for what it is. It's really an excellent way to discover new music. There are a lot of music databanks, but none of them are as extensive as lastfm. So it makes me worried to see the site standing in the grave with one foot. What will happen with our scrobbles and libraries? Maybe I am just very pessimistic and the site may in some way survive for a few years, but it doesn‘t look so bright. CBS have managed to slowly ruin the website. Even if thousand people would be subscribing now it would possibly not rescue it. There isn‘t even a point or reason why one should even subscribe. Maybe I haven‘t checked it out so well, but I think that a subscription doesn‘t really give you much of an advantage (which it actually should). All the features you got when you payed have been elimenated (the radio mainly). No wonder people stopped paying. Instead of lazily resting on the issue with the comment “we can‘t do a thing about it” they should have tried to become more active and aquire music licenses with another tactic. Or they could have implemented other features, which will attract people. Even spotify seems to do better, despite the majority of their listeners not paying for premium. Lastfm are just really doing something terribly wrong. So yeah, that‘s my stance on the issue. What do you thing? Will lastfm be abandoned, become as empty as Myspace (it actually already is) or will be sent to the webgrave? And what do you think are the reasons for it's current status? edit: hups, forget the s in the title >_< can someone fix that? ^^'

I have it on my profile (for longer than one year), maybe you have seen it there. But I think someone else mentioned it here on MH once before? I cant remember. And why the fuck am I noticing this thread just now? I should lurk in this little corner here more often… The Gackt-kackt thing is a very popular joke here in the German speaking realm. And everytime I mention Gackt to my non-Vk or Jrock listening friends they ask me if I am serious and if that‘s really his name

Funny how everyone was expected something big, just because Mast and Ray are doing something together. They both showed bad luck (or choice) with their musical career in the last years (except maybe for Nega, though I was never a big fan of them). It was clear from the start that this won’t be another Aliene and at best just a new Nega.

^ well, there are quite a few bands who sound like they could be from that era. It‘s not so obscure as actual 90s style oldschool bands. See DEZERT, Kuroyuri to kage, Gossip, AvelCain, Crimson Shiva, Sibilebashir, etc. The 00s sound hasn‘t completely died out yet. In fact, some of the bands of this era managed to survive way into the early 2010s. I remember there were still enough Gazette copycats around in 2010. True it‘s slowly starting to fade away as Metalcore has become the next big thing, but a few bands still clinge to it. Being a hopeless nostalgic I can understand where you are coming from, but can‘t agree 100%. The style has changed and the scene is pumping out one Royz-clone after another, but it would be wrong to idealize the past and say, that everything was better back then. The video and production quality seems to be the scapegaot in most discussions, but honestly: it wasn‘t as good as we claim. That doesn‘t mean that all PVs in the 90s and 00s were Matina-style low budget crap filmed on a shaky handcam with the band dancing around in the forest or wrapping themselves in toilet paper, but there wasn‘t as much budget as today. PVs nowadays look a lot better, because the technology may have become more affordable. I also don‘t think that the production has gotten worse (it can‘t be worse than the ‘production’ some obscure VK bands had in the 90s when they recorded their songs in a 5m2 bathroom), maybe their instrumental just happen to sound bad. One thing I noticed with many indies VK bands emerging since the early 00s were the boring 3 chord (or less) riffs. Those were particulary bad in some low budget Nu Metal bands (plus half assed growls). My main beef with modern VK is that the bands want to play Nu Metal or Metalcore so badly, but either don‘t have the skill or the will to learn it. I am not an expert on this issue, since I am not really a big Metal fan, but I am sure that 90% of these VK bands don't even scratch on the surface of what are good growls or ‘harsh vocals’. I really can’t stand listening to random or reptitive guitar slamming and growls and screams so bad it gives me a headache. Which is the main reason why I stay away from this music (even though I listen to AvelCain and Karma‘s voice sometimes exhibits the same problem. I then often just skip the song or part…)

Can absolutely agree with The Gallo, AvelCain and DEZERT. I may also add Sibilebashir, who have become really fucking awesome in the last two years (before 2013 they used to look and sound very different). Then I‘d recommend you to check out Emmurée and …。【サイレンス】. Both bands have the same vocalist, Sou, and the sound is placed somewhere between melancholic alternative rock, post-punk and goth. The former aren‘t really new, but underrated as hell.

Tried them out, but I don‘t like it really. REMNANT was better (or maybe it‘s just that I am not a huge fan of this whiole future pop thing)

I was already wondering when they will announce something new to release this year. True, the singles are a nice way to cash in (at least they don‘t make 10 types *cough* Kiryu *cough). Glad that they have find a new drummer. Now I wish too that they would start doing something new. It‘s nice that they like early 00s VK so much, but that doesn‘t mean that they can‘t move outside the genre and style border a bit (and they ran out of Diru songs to copy too). But let‘s just wait and see, maybe that new mini album will be more promising than the previews of these songs. I have to say though, that I like their new look and costumes. Kyouki looks rad with pink hair.

^A Silent Hill pillow. Nice look and concept. I never listened a song by them but that bandpic makes me curious…

Their previous look had more similiarities with grieva, which even made it difficult to tell them apart when they where seen together on photos. This one is actually decent (typical early 00s style) I am one of the few who liked their demo more than the first single. Hope this one will be better. The kagerou copy pasta is funny as much as their habit of reusing gazette song titles.

I'll worship you, Zeus. I like being an evil heathen

Ugh, looking shit recently. That photo is the only decent one.

Crimson Shiva are one of the few "neo VK" bands who do it right. Their visuals are great and so is their music. Don't mind that the single is softer, as they already have a good reportoire of fast, heavy ones.