hyura

My favorite vocalist is without a doubt Hisui (Madeth Gray'll). To me his voice is just perfect, whether he sings, talks or screams I always get hooked instantly when I hear it. The tone is a little fragile and shivering, when he sings low he sounds like someone with a high voice forcing it and when he sings high he sounds like someone with a low voice forcing it. As if his voice was permanently on the edge of fading which fits the dark themes in their songs really, really well. Also while he does the typical jariban 'out of tune' singing he never gets to the point of being a note off. There is only a soft disharmony that stands out from the other bands of that genre that, in my opinion, overdo it sometimes. Another vocalist I really like and who I think has the perfect 'VK' voice is Hina (AZALEA, hurts, etc). He sounds so dirty and I love his screams and aggressive singing as well has the whining in more melodic tracks. Actually I generally have a thing for higher and slightly dirty or weak voices. Kon (La'Mule, Nightingeil), Shun (Deshabillz), Wataru (12012), Kisui (Phobia), Kyouka (Aliene Ma'riage), Tatsuya (Syndrome) are other favorites of mine.

When I was about 12,13 years old I thought that dressing in black and having colorful hair was great so I befriended some gothy-looking older kids from my school. It turned out they listened to bands like Dir en grey and Dué le quartz and they showed me songs and pictures. I can't really say I 'got' the music at first but it sure impressed me. It was all really chaotic and noisy (lol propably 30kbit) and the bandmembers looked fascinating and beautiful. So I was hooked. Soon I got into more bands, met other fans and we traded homeburned CDs. 2004 was the year I really got into the fandom guess. D'espairsRay, Blood and Eve of Destiny all played in my city and I also got fast internet access so I could use filesharing software like Winmx and Slsk. ;D

;O; Thank you!

;O; Awww thank you people! I'm not the most confident person around so being called pretty and compared to beautiful red haired women and handsome neighbours cats just made my day. orz I'm still amazed how everyone in this forum is so goodlooking by the way. Internet people are way better than their reputation. Also I want to touch that cat's nose.

Recently the spring sun was shining into my apartment again and I was almost blinded trying to take a sunny picture of myself. I'm like an axolotl. Simply not used to any light brighter than that of my computer screen.

Ohhh~ I love cheesy Penicillin ;o; beautiful!

Thank you for looking~ Replied to all the messages!

Sorry for doublepost : < Please go here

The video gave me goosebumps. I honestly wouldn't mind a remake album at all. But doesn't the '9 days' only refer to the fact that the video is online for 9 days? ...also it seems I'm missing this tour by only a week. : (

Of course there is no official source but I'm 100% sure it's read as "「Zwei」 dataisha to mōmoku na chūzetsuji... 69nichi me no sogai" because '...nichi me' is just the usual way to say 'the ...th day'. So in that case 'abortion on the 69th day (of pregnancy)'

The original version? : O Is it a cover? I didn't know~ please enlighten me!

Just like most people here I think the previews sounded really nice. However... way too many melodic sounding songs at once. So now I hope that the album is really full of screaming and madness and they just didn't use those parts for the samples.

I actually don't mind the copying at all. Just many people see grieva as a Dir en grey cover band when in fact they take influence from lots of places (Although Dir en grey is obviously number one) and do pretty well at their concept of bringing back the late 90s/early 00s era. As for currently active bands I enjoy that fit into the maniac theme without being overly nostalgic... Did you try AvelCains latest releases? It reminds me a lot of the more aggressive Nagoya-kei bands that were active around 03 or 04, think Chelsea or Puppet Mammy. BUG scream is also a very nice band. They do have lots of nostalgia about them, but don't really come off as an oldschool copy group. They sound a bit like the Soleil band S. Well you propably tried those anyway. : /

I think it's just less obvious because the Dir en grey influence is so strong, but they really copy all kinds of bands from that era.　 For example 孤独人形症候群 sounds like a way edgier version of AZALEA's 滅びの庭. http://youtu.be/6dfPL_e5HqE And 黒い涙 sounds very very similar to 密室白昼夢 by Earl Grey. (unfortunately I didn't find that one on youtube.) But there are more.

Questions: 1: Don`t worry about others, is Visual Kei a genre, or a scene, or something else, to you? I'd say both, although the genre in that case is a very loose one and it's very easy to find 2 bands that are both visual kei but play music so different from each other that it's a little weird to put their music into the same category but: If someone would ask for a band that is similar to some vk song I could only recommend other vk bands. Mathematically speaking it's a group. A closed system. The only way to get out of vk by always listening to something similar to the song you listened before is go backwards until you get to songs that influenced the genre before it existed or go forth in the history of bands that 'left' the genre. Almost every typical structure, image, rythm and sound can be found outside of vk, but not in the the context it's used there, the impact is completely different. And that is maybe because it's first of all a scene and one that mainly influences itself and developed such a unique live-culture. The songs are mainly composed to fit into a classic vk live performance, they are specifically designed for that purpose and as there is no similar live culture in any other genre the songs will sound different. So. The scene influenced the sound and made it into a genre, although genre is not the right word. Rather 'loose category of song structures and patterns'. 2: Most of the time can you tell the genre, or if you will like a band based on their look? Well most of the time the general direction is obvious, although lately it became a thing for upbeat and fun bands to wear black and thick make up to confuse me. Still. If I saw the bands look, the cover of their cd and read the song titles I will always have a pretty good guess what they sound like and I'm almost never wrong. Liking a band because of their look is absolutely ridiculous, though. Well sometimes I think 'wow they look cool, too bad they sound shitty.' or 'Damn, this band is so much fun, it'd be nice if they put more effort into their looks, they'd sure get more people to listen to them.' 3: Do the looks matter to you? If the same band dressed in Jeans and T-shirts with short hair, would you be as interested? Absolutely. That sometimes happened to me with bands that stopped looking visual, like for example La'Mule. They were actually better in the end and the plain look suited them, too. However. it is really unheard of for a band to have a casual look (from the very beginning) and play the genre I prefer. (That is your typical 98-03 indies sound with lots of screams and insanity) So of course I'd only try them out if someone told me about it as I'd never assume it if I saw them. 4: Do you search for music by sub-genre, such as Nu-Metal, Alt. Rock, etc? I don't. Only by connections to bands I already like (same members, same label...) or recommendations by friends. 5: Do you get annoyed when others label your favorite music as genres which you don`t agree with? Certainly, yes. For example when people use 'kotekote kei' for a band only because they are old or refuse to use it only because they are new. Bonus: If a band starts as Visual Kei, even if they change, are they Visual Kei 4 Lyfe? That really depends on how they change. Do they still use vk imagery, vk language, vk sale strategies? Dir en grey for example dropped the looks a long time ago but they kept their 'visual kei' feeling because they still use cheap shock effects, dramatic language and still put on a theatrical show on stage. On the other hand I'd never call Madbeavers visual kei. Everything about them is rock band, there is absolutely no connection.

Maybe it's not that stupid to do. But it takes all pride off your band and that's a bad thing in visual kei where image is everything. I mean. The vampire prince you act like on stage wouldn't disgrace himself like that. Also. Just a friendly reminder of that one time when Kon was still in Nightingeil and posted on his blog that you'd better come to their oneman because he plans to kill himself and it's the last chance to hear him sing.

Well. Some would argue that physical violence against a woman by a man is feminism because gender shouldn't determine who you decide to choke. That's not my opinion because my opinion is that nobody should choke noone. Still, we don't know whether he did it because he's a sexist asshole or some other kind of asshole or no asshole at all. Also this story has a beard and the beard has a beard.

I truly hope that they are serious about this. 12012 was once a band with a distinct sound and distinct concept, very strong lyrics and a very strong atmosphere but ever since their major debut they seem to have lost their way. They never actually mastered any of the styles they tried since then, it was always more like half-heartily stealing here and there. There was a brief period around usubeni to ame where I thought they created something of their own again but it was over as fast as it started. If they ever return, I don't even want them to go back to the roots (although that would be cool), I just wish they'd return sometime with a concept that is really their own again, because I know they can do it. They showed that they are great composers, great performers. Wataru is a great vocalist and a great poet. They showed they can impress me. So why? 12s case is the only one where I actually lost respect for a band I once loved.

Actually, if any other band had 3 full songs, an SE and a music video they would have just made two types, one with the third song as bonus and the other one with the extra dvd. Costing 1300 and 1800 yen respectively. CELL actually do care about their overseas fans and make sure stuff is always sold with international shipping somewhere. However, I bet they won't cry if you decide not to buy this time. Don't worry.

d'aww. I wonder what he'll look like with La'Mule in spring since the other members are all super visual in their current bands. :' )

^oh yes this. I mean. they exist. Actually rare releases. Mostly by obscure bands or super limited stuff. But that's a small percentage. Then there's the stuff people are just too greedy to buy or too lazy to actively look for.

Somehow this topic makes me feel ueasy. Why? It makes it sound like actually paying the artist for the music you listen to is some kind of charity. Where you can whine later that not all of your money went to poor children in africa. Like the stuff musicians do isn't work. (Set aside that most make money with something else and income through band activities is very small as we all know by now.) Well it is. If you buy a cd you are paying for the people who were involved in making it. You are not paying for whatever they buy from it. Money goes around the whole world anyway and all the money you ever touched has been owned by assholes, has been used to buy weapons or slaves or whatever and you still use it as if it was fresh and new and innocent. Would you like the customers of the company you are working on boycot it because they saw on your blog that you used it to buy bad music made by men in dresses? (Of course I'm all for boycotting companies that support animal cruelty or nationalist organizations or whatnot. But thats a different thing from what one person can change with the little private money they have.)

Do you exercise regularily? I sometimes had similar symptoms and it was always when I had too much work and there was no time to go running or do workouts. Your bloodpressure will go down causing headaches and tiredness if you don't keep it up through physical exercise. (Caffeine is like a short-time substitute for that because it also makes the blood pressure rise.)