Dark Kinma

it is announced at TesЯoa(f.k.a. Rubik) live at Urawa Narciss at 2015/01/16 that they will disband after their one-man live "Beautiful【最果ての世界(saihate no sekai)】" at Urawa Narciss at 2015/05/17
 
 
btw they will hold their live tour "lusty whirlpool market" since their presents live "Mechanical Heaven" at Birth SHINJUKU at 2015/04/12

LOL that SET LIST though

it is announced at VIVALET live at Ikebukuro BLACK HOLE at 2015/01/11 that their new mini album (title not yet finalized) will be released, although details have not yet been announced
 
 
SET-LIST at 2015/01/11:
 
SE
01.Mr.RuLer
02.Decipher
03.HATE
04.夢幻泡影(mugenhouyou)
05.I'm a sickman

DIR EN GREY Music Clip Blu-ray/DVD "Average Sorrow" will be released at 2015/04/01 (Blu-ray 6,480yen / DVD 5,400yen)

MERRY X'Mas !

MERRY X'Mas !

They have one and only good song : Utsukushiki REDRUM.
 
So...

I hope they find a suitable replacement. New material would be nice.

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 must admit, I sat down to listen to DIR EN GREY’s latest full-length ARCHE with a mixture of slight fear and lowered expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed the dark and sprawling nature of their previous album DUM SPIRO SPERO and it seemed to me that they were on a somewhat logical track with their subsequent singles. Despite this, I found myself caring less and less about those one-off songs, and the promo tracks for ARCHE didn’t exactly rile up my attention either. As soon as I pushed play, however, I remembered the band’s greatest strength – making cohesive, strong albums.
 
This time around it sounds like DIR EN GREY stayed with the overall mystical atmosphere of their previous full-length but managed to craft songs that are far more accessible and compact. This accessibility coupled with the band’s taste for the eclectic proves to be a winning combination, as they manage to hit us with some truly impressive (and even catchy) segments. Far from being predictable, songs like the menacingly lingering “Phenomenon” or the kaleidoscopic whirlwind of “Behind a vacant image” are sure to cause a – hopefully pleasant – surprise for old and new listeners alike. Even the tracks previously released as singles are planted effectively into ARCHE’s framework, strengthening the album and vice versa. Accordingly, the dark and gorgeous “輪郭” provides a smooth transition from the somewhat lighter “濤声” to the catchy aural stampede of “Chain repulsion,” one of the simpler offerings of the album, executed with perfect musicianship nonetheless.
 
Speaking of performance, the whole band is in top form, from the reliable and smart grooves of Toshiya and Shinya’s rhythm section to the multi-faceted guitarwork that warrants extra praise. We get a lavish treatment from axemen Kaoru and Die who often resort to outright badass solos and unexpectedly well-composed atmospheric segments that border on post-rock brilliance. We must not forget Kyo either, who does an excellent job at painting the scenery with his vocals – whether possessed by spheric or demonic beings at any given moment. With the five of them, the DIR-EN-puzzle fits together perfectly, yet again.
 
DIR EN GREY’s newest album ARCHE feels like a strong contender for album of the year, at least it certainly mesmerized me. Almost all the tracks work well with each other, intertwined to make a lasting listening experience that might feel a bit long at times but is ultimately satisfying. They manage to do what very few can accomplish authentically, that is to evolve their sound constantly without abandoning their core characteristics. And if this process results in actually worthwhile and meaningful compositions, like here – all the better!

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.

Previews of Dir en grey's Arche.

next news it's a disband ? I HOPE ^^!

VIVALET live-limited single "Decipher" will be released at their live since their presents live "RED DESIRE" at Ikebukuro RUIDO K3 at 2014/03/28 (1,500yen)
 
[track list]
01.Decipher
02.Dirty
03.琥珀(kohaku)
 

ex-UNRAVE members new band "VIVALET" will hold their first formal live at Ikebukuro BLACK HOLE at 2013/11/04, and their live-limited single "RED / 夢幻泡影(mugenhouyou)" will be released at their one-man live "X'mas Night!!～Santa Claus is Coming Crazy～" at Kitahorie CLUB VIJON at 2013/12/25 (2 songs, 1,000yen)
 
"VIVALET" members:
Vo.MARY (ex-UNRAVE)
Gt.REN (ex-UNRAVE)
Ba.TAKUYA (ex-Renny Lily)
Dr.DAIKI (ex-HigherEND)
 
http://vivalet-web.net/

アヲイ
Everything if I don't have it already.
 
 
闇撫
FINAL
 
ゾディア
2008.12.13 Distributed DVD

Multiple choice poll. What are your favorite subgenres of Visual Kei?
 
Poll suggested by . To submit a poll, P.M. @CAT5 with your poll question, choices, and state whether it's mutiple choice or not.

F**K xD I want it too

Kyo Official Store will sell the following versions of Vitium:   Limited Deluxe Version／Blu-spec CD2＋Blu-ray＋T-shirt＋Special Booklet／￥9,259＋tax／PZSK-0007〜8 Limited First Press Version／Blu-spec CD2＋Blu-ray＋Special Booklet／￥6,944＋tax／PZSK-0009〜0010   general sale versions:   First Press Version／2CD／￥3,000＋tax／SFCD-0150〜151 Normal Version／CD／￥2,500＋tax／SFCD-0152  
the band will also embark on a small tour in support of this release.
 
sukekiyo 二〇一五年公演 「The Unified Field」   2015.02.09 Shibuya Cultural Center Owada - Sakura Hall 2015.02.10 Shibuya Cultural Center Owada - Sakura Hall 2015.02.16 Kyoto Gekijo 2015.02.17 Kyoto Gekijo

Je l'ai dit dans le HBday thread mais je le redis ici : JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE RYUUJI ! 
 

Joyeux anniversaire -Ryuuji- !!
 

Un petit coucou à tout le monde 
 

I'd rather say its called 'equal' cause almost all the songs are the same haha.

PolterGeist & VIVALET live-limited coupling single "騒赤の乱(souseki no ran)" will be released at their presents live tour "騒赤の乱(souseki no ran)" since Urawa Narciss at 2014/11/17 and up to Ash OSAKA at 2014/12/07 (1,000yen)
 
[track list]
01.Mr.RuLer(Vo.光孝(mitsutaka) ver.)
02.XⅢ Stairs(Vo.MARY ver.)