Ikna

It's a bit unusual to see them in black (and I always loved the red color scheme). But the make-up is pretty interesting and reminds me of Horror Punk. I am hoping for a more chaotic and "wild" song.

Man, their sad songs are truly fucking sad. I wonder how much Kon writes from his own experience?

^Oh yeah, the american Glam Punk Scene from the early 90s. I actually already wondered myself, if they influenced VK, or if they were influenced by japanese glam instead. But my first reaction to a glamour Punks images was: "Man, that looks like early Visual kei!" I mean this one: Same goes for other bands of the scene, such as Queeny Blast Pop, Foxxy Roxx, Pretty Boy Floyd, Heart Throb Mob, etc. In another thread about VKs musical origins and influences we also mentioned the New Wave and New Romantic scene and a pic of Visage was posted here as well. I think it's hard to say that VK just grew out of Glam and Punk bands. Buck-Tick were for sure a huge influence on the looks and music, but I'd never throw them into the same box as Color, X Japan, Dead End or even D'ERLANGER. Instead, they always appeared to be more on the New Wave spectrum. And I think we often forget the huge influence japanese goth artists had. MADAME EDWARDA and Auto-Mod are proven to have had a wide influence as well. Also this guy here was adored by many VK bandguys:

I think it's hard to compare early Kuroyume with mid 90s Kuroyume and late/current Kuroyume. They are all extremely different, especially music-wise. Feminism is the last record I can care about, anything afterwards wasn't really touching me. But it's nice to see that they did a tribute to their earlier years. I wonder if there will be any live recordings (maybe on a DVD). Or maybe any liev reports about how good or bad they performed their old material.

I have to say their last album finally started growing on me. At first I found it to be rather weak compared to the first (which wasn't really that individual). It defenitely takes some time to grow on you. I am really glad, that there were more songs with a personal note rather than another bunch of direct Diru imitations. Their songwriting still lacks some independence. Like many people have said, many of their songs sound wa too similiar. I hope Grieva follow this path though and experiment more, without loosing the elements that make their music nostalgic and charming. Also it may just be me, but i love the look of their last PV. It reminds me of the stuff La'Mule were doing, just with black splatter instead of red one. I am not so fond of their recent look, but the single may be turning out wondrful and that's what matters more.

Well, it is a singer from a VK band and guess what, Vkei was influenced by GLAM. Good VK = hot? So it's really not about the music, ok. Also blackdoll, we have all already understood that you find old school to be shitty and pointless. You are writing the same argument again and again in any fucking thread that vaguely mentions oldschool bands (or is about old bands being covered by new ones, etc). It's okay now, you can calm down and fangirl/fanboy about Lycaon. No old skewl fanatic will stop you. What i noticed so far in the thread: Kote kei elitists will never accept new VK and will always cry about it being shitty, too poppy, commercial and the bands looking like dumb hosts. And they will all sit in the corner waiting for new bands sounding like their indie superherous, like punks still wait for the revolution. (I know what I mean, I am kinfd of one of them) And the Neo VK Fans will always make snarky remarks how old VK looked dumb and shit and how sexey and hotz the new bands are now. And that their production values and skills are better (something that even I agree with.) And yeah, I am using those fucking labels. The reason: even though everyone seems to have a different understanding of Kote kei and Neo Vkei (since both are terms generated by fans, not bands or "experts") the majority of people will still understand what I mean, when I talk about Neo VK. Also it is horter than to say "the bands that came after those old skewl groups." Yeah, I am very lazy when I write my ass huge texts, so short terms and labels com very handy. I don't really care if the label is legit or if we have to rethink the concept in 10 years when contemporary bands are now considered old - for the time being it's totally practical. And now to the "old band style coming back" thing: I am with the majority here. Old school VK is gone and over. That era will never repeat. Unlike other music scenes that had more or less successfull revivals in the last years (see deathrock, post-punk and synthpop) old VK doesn't have enough fans to be revived. There is no big and strong "core" scene or community which is interested into forming and/or supporting bands playing in that style and there are no people who would help to build up a space and network for this style to flourish in the underground scene. VK itself isn't even a real scene and definitely not a subculture. There is no chance either that the early to mid 00s bands will have a revival and the type of VK that's popular now will vanish on day as well and be replaced by a new type of VK. I also often heard that old VK was fitting to it's time. Every era has it's own feel and “Zeitgeist“ and of course musical and fashion trends. Old VK fitted into the 90s, because it was fitting into the feel of that era. We have the year 2014 now and the 2010s have a complete different feel and culture than the 90s. It's not easy to translate something from an older era into a new one without having to change it or at least adapt it ti the current circumstances. Old VK therefore wouldn't even work in the same way today as it did in the 90s. Too much has changed since then. Of course there are bands like La'veil Mizeria or GAUZES, but they don't have a big following. They seem maybe too boring and "old" for the average VK listener, which is why their fanbase is way too small to bring them into the spotlight of popular music. Grieva may be the only ones who are successfull, but for me Grieva are more of a "modern old VK band". They defintely have the '99 spirit in their music, but they still sound somewhat modern. If they had only a reportoire of songs like kikei they'd be spot on-old school VK, but with old Kuroyume inspired music alone you can't win the attention of people anymore. That's why they spice up everything with a bit of modern VK influences. Not that this is bad though. in fact I like it a lot and in my book they are doing it right. They have the right connection to the roots of VK, but they aren't totally backwards. (I don't want to discuss about the Dir en grey influence though, everthing has been said about it). My faztít: the argument will go on until eternity and I too would like to see more old school bands. But i guess we can accept that it's dead and gone and should instead value what we have. There are enough old bands you can listen to. If you want to follow new bands and feel, that modern VK isn't yours, maybe try to go searching something you like outside of VK. This is mostly what I do and therefore I have no problem with no new VK bands being of any interest. On the other side: I may often come off as a hater, but I have nothing against modern VK bands. I just don't really like any aspect of 95% of them and I can't really get the hype around some bands, especially those Pop-rock Host kei groups. As I have said in this thread already: it's dependant on your preferences and what you like. Tastes are different and while I love old school aesthetics and music, another person may find it absolutely horrible. I can totally accept it, nobody has to like what I like. On the other hand I am not going to make mean spirited comments about how you suck for thinking the Gazette or Vivid (the new one) are the best bands that ever graced the scene. I may not agree with it, but you can love it as much as you want and defend your opinion. I just dislike the strange climate between fans of old and new VK. It may be just me, but I have the feeling some people on the net (and here on MH) are extremely defensive when it comes to that topic and try to push down the fans of the other side. I am really sick and tired of users trying to turn every discussion into a bitchfight between oldschool and newschool lovers. I can't hear anymore the whole "But my (old or new) band would have done that better". And of course the whole "they looked like shit back then". It's as shitty and dumb as the "My band is better than yours. Your band sucks and therferoe your taste sucks!!! trololol" crap. Sorry for writing a long text again. >_>

I guess when many people (including me) speak about “shock value“ they mean the typical gloomy, dark, try hard-edgy aesthetics, that defined at least mid to late 90s Vkei. I'd say the whole dark and horror chic survived even until the mid 00s. See Unsraw, early Screw and all those Nu-Metal influenced groups of that time. Unsraw even had Body Horror-like costumes at the beginning. But what it mostly comes down to are the Horror chic, the dark romanticism (Paraphilias, Murder, Violence, asocial or murderous behaviour that's kinda romanticized), Eroguro stuff (Amputations, bandages, blood, eye licking and/or eye fixation and body horror), etc. And the most important thing: the fact, that the musicians often look otherworldly with their freaky costumes and cheesy hairtsyles. It creates some kind of "out of the ordinary" experience. That may be the biggest point, since in Neo VK bands rarely do the whole "faux-goth with huuuge Neon colored hair and 2spooky4all make up" anymore. Those older bands (from the indies scene mostly, because we are obviuosly not talking about soft vkei here, which never had much shock value to begin with) bands looked ridiculous most of the time, but their looks set them apart. What many people are bragging about is, that modern VK bands are often not so different from other popular japanese rock groups in term of looks. Anyone can dress in the away VK bands are styling themselves now, since their look is based on street fashion, rather then expensive and cheesy costumes, which the bandmembers only wear on stage (since they are way too uncomfortable to be actually worn outside as daily outfits). Also let's not forget that there are a lot of cultural differnces between Japan and us mostly US and Europe-listeners. What may not be shocking or provocative for us may be totally not okay and scandalous in Japan. I am sure that Dir en grey's PV managed to enrage or scare the shit out of some Japanese citizens back in the day. And of course, what has already been said, time has changed. We are now familiar with all the clichés old VK bands had to offer and we grew tired of them. They lost their effect to really reach us emotionally. The only thing we may see now is that 80% of those PVs are cheap and bad. So saying shock value defined VK is not wrong, as it did indeed in Japan. But now from my subjective perspective: I really miss those dumb and old “edgy" clichés. I have seen them so many times, but I still can't say that I am glad that they vanished. Okay, I am fine with Nazi uniforms having gone extinct in Vkei and badly done MUCC-inspired make up seems to have left the scene finally too. But I'd really love to see again bands incorporating the good old horror tropes, eroguro elements and the "I am goin' crazy and slice some people up, fuck yeah" theme.

wha-wha-what. I just wanted to check in here to see what's up and that's the first thing I read, ugh X_X I am really speechless. In the recent years I didn't follow MdM as much as I used to in the mid 2000s, but they are still important to me, as they were my first VK band. Therefore it makes me really sad to hear one of my fav members to pass away. I wonder if they'll search for a new guitarist :/

Those previews are really nice. Such a shame though, that this project will be put on hiatus.

Hmmm… I actually find it not that bad. But I'll wait for the full thing.

*jumps in* Really nice video. I have high hopes on their releases. Hopefully I won't be disappointed. (Iria's hat is irritating me though)

I remember I was a big fan of them once… I had almost forgotten that they existed, which is mainly because their releases stopped being interesting for me. And then there was a huge silence about them (they haven't released anything new since 2012, right?). It doesn't surprise me that they disband, since they weren't so active the last years and haven't been producing anything great in a while. What's more sad is how they had a loyal fanbase, but were pretty much "abandoned" by everyone. They kind of got into this stream of forgotten bands. I wouldn't say VK is dead though, just because another small old band, that nobody cares about anymore, has gone. Good or decent bands dying is pretty much an integral part of the "scene". It's true though that almost all groups who displayed the early to mid 00s VK style are gone now. But that era already ended in 2008/2009. Still a bit sad to hear that they are disbanding though.

ARE YOU ALL RICH? (or am I just too poor?) I am not spending much money on CD releases. First, I mainly buy used VK CDs that aren't from such uber-rare bands. So the prices are not that high. I mostly order a batch of CDs for like 40-60€ every 2 or 3 months. I buy new releases only form bands that are really my top faves, which would be just Grieva and NightingeiL at the moment. I wouldn't even have the money to be able to spend more than 30€ on CDs every month, let alone 200€ for VK CDs in a year. That's because I happen to find it more useful to save up my money for a flat, a car licence or anything else I'd like to have in the near future. Also I already buy enough non-japanese music and clothes. I wish though to spend more money on japanese CDs and rarez once I may get a job and a stable income.

Gaz, it's the internet. The internet is not only for porn, but also for whine

^ Maybe a reference to the Stalin? (the band). Wasn't there somethign about how much Japan hated Stalin which is the reason many bands used his name and communist imagery to piss off the public? Millitary themes in general were for shoking people. It's not unique to either Visual kei or Punk, but could also be found in the Metal scene. See japanese Metal bands like Rommel, Rosenfeld, Harkenkreuz or Mein Kampf. The obsession with Nazi themes predated Visual kei. But I noticed that it almost vanished completely in the last years. As cliché, cheesy and sometimes embarassing some of the Visual kei fave themes are, I still love them. Some themes seem to have survived after 20 or even 30 years, others have vanished and some themes seem to be new (I can't think now of any that started to become a trend in the recent years. I can mostly only speak for Visual kei trends from ca. 1994 to 2005. But I am sure there are some new themes.) In the 90s for example there was a huge obsession with anything that dealt with murder, suicide, mental illness and criminality. You were not cool and trve enough if you didn't have at least one song that incorporated it. Even some of the lighter soft Visual kei bands could have songs with titles that had words like "mad", "insane" or "crazy" in it. And the infamous "edgy" indie VK bands were known for their outrageous use of clichés and stereotypes of the mentally ill (straight jackets, making strange movements and facial expressions in front of the camera, asylums, bloody bandages everywhere, our bandmen curling hysterical on the floor and spout like dogs). The amount of songs using words like ”Psychopath“, ”Madness“ and ”Suicide“ were the hit. Also Kuroyume had a song about autism, which was pretty cliché. I heard rumors about japanese people criticizing it as highly offensive too. Another popular thing was medical fetish and eroguro. The whole blood stains, bandages, eye patches and body horror thing. I really love it, especially doctor outfits. I generally have a huge soft spot for all of that medical fetish stuff and I love people, who play around with the mad doctor/scientist trope. Some would call it iryou kei, but I am personally not sure how much that theme justifies to be it's own kind of style. If it was a thing, then ”vampire kei" or ”aristocrat kei” would be real things too. Also the amount of old bands who had at least one doctor outfit/costume was pretty high back then. Dir en grey did it (well, Kyo at least for Cage), Malice Mizer, some indie bands like Beata, La'Mule (see inspire PV), etc. And then we have all the bands associated to be iryou kei, who mainly use the doctor/medical costumes. Other terms I have noticed that are very popular and have some connection to topics like murder, death and also sex are: Deathtopia (seriously, why did so many bands used to have song called like that?), S+M, Crime and Punishment (mostly in Japanese, Tsumi to Batsu), Masochism, Knife, Schizophrenia, Miserable…

And the even more horrible thing is, that he once looked like this. Also wtf at that song. Tatsuya, stop fighting your midlife crisis by trying to be some ass cute Cyber.

30 people is pretty good for a unknown and cheesy band like them. Unfortunately I never went to VK concerts in Germany, despite I don't live so far away from you (also I knind of missed all Austrian gigs too. I wasn't really a concert goer). So I have no idea how many fans other bands got at their lives (such as BLOOD, Unsraw, Calmando Qual, Eve of Destiny). I think VK bands generally don't attract many viewers in Europe (except for big bands like the Gazette), so having a audience of 30 people isn't that bad. Thanks for the background info. It's interesting to read how organizers are bringing bands here to Europe and why they bring mostly the cheap, unknown indie groups. And to commence the thread topic, have some delightfully crap songs: A+ singing skillz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8J7-AvykFo Good grief. No words.

Wish they'd release their stuff through larger stores so it would be easier to get their CDs :/

Well, they are inspired by mostly the late 90s, early 00s bands. Their first releases were pretty much Gauze era Dir en grey worship. But they do indeed sound a whole lot more modern than other groups you'd label nowadays as "Kote kei". Their output is a weird mix of songs, that have Kuroyume qualities, that are Dir en grey imitations or are more 2003-ca. 2008 VK material. (I hope it stays that way. I don't need Grieva to become another boring wannabe br00tal Metalcore band) Also "today's oldschool" is really hard to find, I think. La'veil Mizeria may be the only ones doing it straight and then there is also Ant1nett, but there are actually no "real" oldschool bands existing today. All the oldschool inspired or influenced bands have in some way incorporated modern VK elements (see Madiduor, Metis Gretel and so on). But I could be wrong, I am not an expert on this. Did you try out their latest album? Many people have said that 十字架二捧グ赤イ××× has these Kuroyume-ish vibes, which was the case for kikei as well. Their second album may not be as diverse as their first, but it has some good moments. (the songs are also much calmer, in my opinion)

Haha, yeah the fandom is pretty crazy and funny. But I also laugh at some of the official commercials, mainly the bizarre korean one here: Still figuring out on which kind of drugs the makers of this have been.

Couldn't give less shit about their look honestly. Though it's good to see them finally wearing something that differs heavily from their previous costume sets. I can't say much about the song though, the preview is way too short for me, but I really like the end, starting at ca. 0:33. I wouldn't call it new school as it still clearly has the pre-2006 VK sound and vibe. But let's just wait and see when the full thing comes out. (also I agree that they should take more time for writing. I am feeling that their output just starts to sound the same. I still have problems with Shuuen not having as much outstanding songs as their debut, which on the other side was just diru covers).

NOISIA's pretty interesting. Would anyone share it? *leecher mode* I Like the instrumentals in Croix Chevalier too. It could be an awesome song if the vocalist would be better. Celestia Le Ciel / Merveille Magique were touring europe quite often… and apparently many people payed to see them. Guess they had their little fanbase XD Time for some embarassing accidents of the past from well known vocalists! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsEfOwY6qTU Vocal is Natsuki from -OZ-. Unbelievable, but true. But I love this track, i have a soft spot for those tracks that sound as if they were recorded in a bathtub. Former band of Ice/Eros from BFN/Zodiack. Complete crap kei and god did Eros sound horrible.

Those wolf screams and barking growls always crack me up. No crap kei thread without the infamous Pumpkin Head! They are so low budget, freaky and hilarious it's excellent. All of their PVs are cheesy and funny as hell.

Well, tastes are different I guess, because I can't really agree with you. It is right, that Fuller changed the story so drstically it might come off as a Fanfic to the books, but if you manage to see the series as being it's very own reinterpretation of the franchise, then it should be more enjoyable. But then I was never a fan of the movies and think that Mads' Hannibal is way better and more convincing than Hopkins'. About Hugh Dancy: I think he acts really good. Most of the acting in the series is rather subtle, as the setting is generally very calm (which is quite surprising for a thriller). It seems the expression of their faces, the body language and symbolism has more weight in this series than in others (which are also more action oriented). And I love the dialogues. Even if they come off as super poetic and wannabe deep. But i love it when poetry, philosophy and references to the canon (here the books) are woven into the dialogues. Not saying you are wrong. I can understand where you are coming from as this series clearly isn't everyone's cup of tea and I guess it can be really hard for many people to like it (which is proven by it's status as niche series and the low ratings).