Today I was like, "time to watch some Korra!" and then cried because I remembered it's over.
Overall I really enjoyed the series.
It expanded the avatar universe in ways I didn't think it would and, despite some difficult hurdles to get over from Nick, the creators did a good job of adapting the development of the show.
The characters were interesting for the most part and the villains were all memorable (except unilock).
The "Team Avatar" idea was touched on a bit but it didn't feel very strong. There wasn't that same bond like with the original ATLA team. Then all that weird crap with the love triangle.
I think the series will feel different watching back to back so I'm gonna give it another watch in it's entirety.
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.
Thanks -k∆-!
Yeah, I think you're right.
If I had more time/footage I think I would've treated each segment as its own video instead, but since I had so little footage I decided to make this more of an "events within the past 24 hours" type video. Appreciate the feedback : )
My best medium is video and music so I thought I'd post some of my work here. Here's my most recent work. Finished just this morning!
Falling into Winter
Fall has passed and Winter is now here to stay. I wanted to capture the essence of these seasons using my home as the setting. Because, after all, isn't home the place we all gather to enjoy this time of year?
All video was shot and edited by me. All music was written and recorded by me. The food, however, was not made by me.
My best medium is video and music so I thought I'd post some of my work here. Here's my most recent work. Finished just this morning!
Falling into Winter
Fall has passed and Winter is now here to stay. I wanted to capture the essence of these seasons using my home as the setting. Because, after all, isn't home the place we all gather to enjoy this time of year?
All video was shot and edited by me. All music was written and recorded by me. The food, however, was not made by me.
ghost got a reaction from Manic in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from Nisimaldar in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from Tetora in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from doombox in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from shizukasou in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from Spectralion in Your last music-related buy!
ghost got a reaction from MaikoMizu in Your last music-related buy!
ghost got a reaction from Ito in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from PsychoΔelica in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from CAT5 in Show Yourself (again)
ghost got a reaction from Zeus in Avatar: The Legend Of Korra
ghost got a reaction from eiheartx in CD Audio-crackle troubleshooting question
ghost got a reaction from nekkichi in Dan's videos