saiko

Egnirys is one of Diru's sweetest highlights in their whole career. Pure sophisticated experimentation. Never came to hear something like that again in Diru, or in vk. And that solo. 11/10. This song is also one of the reasons to let grow hate on them, because "hey buddy, u like this vk song??? Cuz we r feeling like nevur play it again Cuz we are tough guyzzz who hate vk and like their music heavyyyy Woooo". Classic Dir.

"BOOGA BOOGA FOOCHA stuff". Loved it. Never that well described. Kaoru what?

Sukekiyo is how Dir should have started sounding like since years ago... Very promising clip, btw. They really need to recover from that garbage they called "Utafumi".

I wish somebody could rip and upload this album. Love aki and Laputa!

Do you any vk band that has for sure a ghost writer? I suppose that this information is mainly not shared to the public, so, in case you actually know, what are the things that make you suspect that while hearing a band's production?

Not only it was difficult to find the vk scene back in the day, but nowadays keeping in touch with the artists you love is still difficult if it wasn't for the kind fans that rip and upload the stuff of the bands you like. Imagine for a second that people didn't existed...

Never thought Adidas would sponsor the kind of artists of Dir. Is this true?

Hi there! I wanted to create a thread to share our love for terekos. I've always felt they have some kind of magic that official recordings don't have, mostly if they are from a band's early gig. Dir en grey ones are my favorites. Although Kyo missing words or notes, or Kaoru missing the solo... that fastest-than-ever Sangeki no yoru totally kills it! The Gothic intro... the scream of the public... the loudness of guitars... Kyo's deep voice and desperate vibrato... AND what can we say about that early version of Zan? I really came to like it much rather than the album version... sounds so brutal... Toshiya and Shinya's speed-skills kill it, again! I still hope someday we will have decent video footage from this era of Dir...💗

I really wish they play more stuff rather than No pain no gains or Beast of Blood. Kamijo may be there to sing Mana's songs like Bel Air and Au revoir, and Shuji for Illuminati and the Közi stuff. Don't know Hitomi, though.

Hey! Can you explain a little more about it?

Recently, Sakura (L'arc~en~ciel's ex-drummer) has been uploading lots of pictures of Kami's (Malice Mizer's dead drummer) in his Facebook account. Today he uploaded more photos, this time of both Mana and Közi's well-known classic guitar models, both plugged to their equipment, in what seemed to be a rehearsal room. Can we expect, finally, something like an actual comeback?

Please, do it!😍

I've never believed he had a hard time playing anything. In fact, I've always loved him and believed he and Toshiya were the most skilled musicians in the band. And don't forget that he actually played faster than in studio during their classic 1999 Ousaka Jou live. I'm interested in what you said, perhaps you could share somethin that gave you that point...

What do you mean?

That is what I'Ve been craving for all this time... Traditional vk Diru will be always best diru

I was thinking the same since sukekiyo happened. It can be liked it or not, but it can't be denied that it is by far more sophisticated than Dir, in any way. I never thought Kyo could put out something like that, mostly because (since the very lack of information about these artists) I've always had this image of Kyo being more of a punk performer rather than a genuine "musician"... you know, someone more interested in doing borderline stuff in Adidas joggs and screaming till his throat goes shit rather than actually doing "music" (very hard to affirm strictly define what is music and what is not, but you get me). Then with sukekiyo he suddenly went with full the stage performance, quality clean singing and japanese melodies he claimed to deeply hate when he was interviewed back when they started going out of Japan... And, in the other hand, Dir started to make different moves that I find like... pointing out some loss of identity and lack direction? Arche was great, but Utafumi... my God, I still don't know what crossed their minds when they decided to record that! From serious experimental metal to dumb punk vibes? Wtf! Then the Mode of tours coming like one after another... Is it me or anyone else feels suspicious about the need of the band to do one revival after another? The outrageous visuals also came back, which I deeply praise because I will always love Dir for their visual kei roots, but something blocks me from taking them seriously since I can't feel them genuine... And Ningen wo kaburu sounds really uninspired, tbh. Don't know how to feel about the new album and their new direction. Maybe all this saying comes from someone who has already actively formed an "identity" for "Dir en grey" in base of certain ideas... for me, Dir will always be from Gauze to Uroboros, wich was the discography available when I got to know them back in the trendy 2009... Still hope they are still around when I travel to Japan in the future...

I always read his entries, but I never read that he is gay or implying his views in homosexuality on vk. Could be interesting to read about it, though.

Wow, does it have to go THAT drastically? Wow, how ingrateful a career could become...😢

Wow, this kind of vk and American gay culture crossover thrills me a lot. 😍 Partly because VK was ALWAYS about gender-bending, heavy (homo)sexualized costumes and performances... but, paradoxically, all of that kept in something like superficial for the eyes of the fans, or at least not really pointed out or signified as something "gay" and valued for that. I think that were Western fans that pointed it out the most, and in cases used vk as a platform to explore gender and sexuality and its possibilities, but I can't figure that as an option for Japanese fans... But, for instances, many bandoman seemed always pretty non-straight for me, even when there was actually no words from them of anyone else about it, like Jasmine You for instance🤔

+1. Who the fuck is this guy? The only thing I know is that he produced Dir's "I'll" single back in the day. Who is this guy?

You mean he has actually lost popularity that greatly? Who is samfree? Btw, I really loved this guy because of Sakurane! And I eventually lost my track of him, too... I'mean curious about the fact that I wasn't the only one feeling that way! Any thoughts about why did that happen? I remember Piko doing an anison Europe tour also, with quality musicians like An Cafe's Takuya. I mean, he had some sort of explosive popularity back in the day...

Same thinking here. My playlist of many bands reduces to their stand up titles... I say they "stand up" not only because they are great per se, but because the rest of their discography are just fillers, as somebody said above. Kiryu is one of those band. This is not to neglect on the fact that they have skilled musicians, great composers, cool concepts and pumping live performances... but also an entire discography of just the same 5-10 same ideas combined differently. It happens the same to me with Nightmare: their "Historical Nightmare" best of is everything I need from them; there one or two tunes from the rest of their albums that are worthy, and then nothing else to care that much. Keep in mind that I continue to listen to these artists' whole discography as much as I can, trying to find in those so-called "fillers" something worthy and genuine about them... but nope. And time goes on, and ends up giving me the reason to my feelings (for example: bands like Naito getting disbanded, same with An Cafe; or bands like A9 facing difficulties with keeping their fanbase as it were when they sounded alright, and recurring to k-pop-like group-dancing performances trying to still appeal to them). It's a very intriguing fact, if you ask me... why will they do that? Specially the bands with long discographies. Should we assume they do it just because they have runned out of ideas?

I thought the same! It seems that for nowadays scene old-school=ZAN... If their plan is to just emulate, there are a ton of bands to get inspiration...

Wow, I'm really overwhelmed by the massive positive reactions. Yeah, sounds good and organic, but... am I the only one hearing the copy-and-pasted clichés? Anyway, good you find your cup of tea! BTW, got interested in which guys is your criteria to judge good vk music (and bad, also)🤔

Well composed, well executed, well recorded... but man, so, so generic. Still very attached to the clichés of the 90s (in this case the ZAN one), like Grieva and the bands from the nostalgia kei boom did for almost every song they put out... I wish this will help them to get a wider audience, at least. Diaura is very special to me. They are one of the last bands that I followed with quite great passion, because of their skills at creating a sound that combined the best from the old-school reminiscence and modern influences, eveything done with their own mark (seriously, Diaura achieved one of those things many bands lack nowadays: a style that makes you recognize them from meters away). Their Focus and Triangle album are masterpieces, from the very beggining to the end. I guess they are having a hard time trying to overcome them...