Jigsaw9

it is announced at MEJIBRAY one-man live at Hiroshima NAMIKI JUNCTION at 2014/09/08 that their new album "THE "420" THEATRICAL ROSES" will be released at 2014/12/03 (2 TYPE)
 
limited edition (3,780yen) will include CD+DVD (including "Echo" PV), and regular edition (3,240yen) will include CD only
 
[CD track list]
01.IDEA (included in regular edition)
02.シアトリカル・ブルーブラック(theatrical blue black)
03.DiefiL
04.Hungry Psychopath
05.Mr.レインは死んだふり(Mr.rain wa shindafuri)
06.RAVEN
07.埋葬虫(maisoumushi)
08.Contagion
09.Echo
10.hatred × tangle red × hunger red
11.瞬間のアイディアル(shunkan no ideal)
12.BOWWOW
13.SUICIDAL WORD GAME
14.SERVANT
15.Cristate
16.鳥は泳ぎ方を知らず溺れ亡骸(tori wa oyogikata wo shirazu obore nakigara)
17.COPERNICUS (included in regular edition)
 
 
btw they will hold their one-man live "THE THEATRICAL SHOW 鳥ハ泳ギ方ヲ知ラズ溺レ亡骸(tori wa oyogikata wo shirazu obore nakigara)" at Shibuya Koukaidou at 2014/12/22

miyavi told us that it wan't dead so who do we believe

Cool, man. I hope they're both enjoyable to you. I'll keep recommending a new album once or twice a week for now, because I've got a lot of gems that deserves way more recognition than what they've got. And it helps me rediscover some albums that I really love, but haven't heard in a while, and that's always fun.

Thanks for your continuous recommendations, Bear! This Pharaoh band and God Macabre sound pretty cool, might check them out later.

Thought I'd do some genre jumping with my recommendations to get some varity and keep it interesting, so here's something different than the two last.
 
 

Pharaoh - The Longest Night
 
Old school power metal in a modern package. That's the best way to describe this fantastic album.  It's a semi-progressive and epic power metal album with lots of power, punch and twist and turns. You can spot some Iron Maiden, some Control Denied, some Manilla Road, some Jag Panzer and some Crimson Glory among others, but the band never rips anyone off. It's a unique album where you easily can spot the influences, but you'll never believe that you're listening to anything but Pharaoh. Fantastic songs with a fantastic, a bit rough vocal performance and a great production. This is newer power metal at its finest. None of this super happy Dragonforce/Power Quest/Freedom Call/whatever bullshit metal. This is power metal how it was done a long time ago. Powerful!
 

 
"We were the brave, we were alive
Until we endured the longest night
Now we're enslaved, we've lost our minds
We fell victim to the longest night
And now we're no more"
 
My! Fucking! God!

I'm not gonna go to fast here in case someone actually finds anything interesting, but I just decided to throw something out since I've suddenly got internet that works two days in a row. Have had some major problems with my internet for the last month.
 
 

 
God Macabre - The Winterlong
 
So, as we all know the Swedish death metal scene was a major force in the death metal scene back in the late 80's and early 90's with bands such as Nihilist/Entombed, Dismember, Grave, Merciless, Carnage and Unleased, before bands such as At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, In Flames and Hypocrisy took it a step further with their melodic death metal. But underneath this there was a shitload of bands releasing fantastic demos/EPs/albums that should've become bigger, but that never made it like the mentioned bands. God Macabre, Nirvana 2002, Epitaph, Gorement, Wombbath and Toxaemia are some of these bands. And unlike the Florida death metal scene, the Swedish wasn't very thrasy. It's way heavier and more brutal.
 
The Winterlong is a short death metal carnage clocking in on just 28 minutes of brutal and doomy, atmospheric, melancholic and rotten death metal of the best kind. It sounds very Swedish, but it doesn't really sounds like any of the Swedish bands of that time. Don't get me wrong, if you put on this you'll hear influences from Nihilist/Entombed, Carnage, Dismember, Grave, Epitaph and even Tiamat, and of course there's lots of Death here as well, and it's a bit Leprosy influenced I'd say, but there's something quite unique about the whole album. The atmoshere is unlike any other death metal album out there, and they just found their own sound.
 
It's a shame that The Winterlong... were the only output from these Swedes, especially since it's quite short, but it was released in 08 with three other songs that are fabolous as well. But the good thing about this? Well, it's a 28 minute logn death metal carnage that, when finished, you'll put on again because you just crave something more, and with its 28 minutes it never gets dull.
 
Hands down for one of the best death metal albums of all time.
 

old man yells at cloud

could this have anything to do w. toshi gig paycheck being 20x of what current Dir en grey career pays him
 
impressed by Toshi delivering maria cross live vocal excellence & mashiro range, the living jrock legend, bless ha
 
those screams come from heavens & angels do all support growling for him

I'll just post this last one since it wasn't reduced to "japanese band's" openers, was it? I'm sorry if the opposite would be the case.
However, I find the epicness just astounding in this case. Fun thing is that this song works just as well as a finisher.
 
Ex Deo - Romulus

Oh hell yeah, I'm ready for some new Gargoyle badassery!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RnTt6lahog

Yesss Cat, that LTS track is definitely an amazing opener.

Here's some more:
kamomekamome - エクスキューズミー

This is such an epic start to this album. Starts with the a capella bit and then goes into a frenzy, and eventually end up in that beautiful chorus.
 
D'espairsRay - Infection

Does it get any better than this? Such an eerie beginning to this dark album, and the percussion adds so much to the atmosphere of the song. The chorus sets you up for what is to come after this.
 
And finally, one of my faves:
√eight - illational of the people

That opening riff is so powerful, and then that slapping bass after it just gets me so stoked. And it's pretty ballsy to start an album with a full song without a proper chorus, haha.
 

Sigh - Hail Horror Hail
This album marked a big change in Sigh's sound, and in such way this is the perfect opener. It's the straightest and easiest song to get into on the album, and it will kinda prepeare you for what's coming. It starts off as a catchy, blacking heavy metal song with fantastc leads and Mirai's raspy vocals on top before it transforms into this beautiful, cinematic orchestration and suddenly goes back to the blacking heavy metal. This is a perfect opener in the way that it is one of the best songs ever made by man, and it prepeared you for the change and weirdness that would come later on this album as well. You heard something were different this time around, even more so than on Ghastly Funeral Theatre and it opened up your mind for the madness that what were to come... at least it did for me in my young days.
 
And that catchy, blacking heavy metal is topped with some great lyrics that are easy to hear due to Mirai's understandable vocals:
 
"Beyond all morality into insanity
I plunge my knife in you again and again
Torture your corpse before it's cold
I seek to devour your life and soul"

Excellent tracks mentioned so far! I'm particularly fond of the LUNA SEA, Kagrra, and 9GBO choices.
 
Some of my other favorites:
 - BUCK-TICK - Kourin from 13kai wa gekkou (okay, it has an intro before it but jesus it's totally amazing/epic/slow/sinister)
 - SADS - Hello from The Rose God Gave Me (it's SADS, it's glam-punk-metal, 'nuff said)
 - SHERBETS - Iceland Boy from MIRACLE (let yourself be drawn into the surreal magical otherworld of Kenichi's gentle tones)
 - Church of Misery - Killfornia (Ed Kemper) from Master of Brutality (riles you up perfectly and then DAT BASS riff hits at 1:28 & you know shit is GOING DOWNNN)

Found out about Slaughter To Prevail the other day only because lucas munn posted about them on his facebook. Speaking of which, I can't wait for the new Rings Of Saturn album to drop. More insane double bass, blast beats, technical guitar riffage, brutal vocals and alien themed songs.
 

Excellent tracks mentioned so far! I'm particularly fond of the LUNA SEA, Kagrra, and 9GBO choices.
 
Some of my other favorites:
 - BUCK-TICK - Kourin from 13kai wa gekkou (okay, it has an intro before it but jesus it's totally amazing/epic/slow/sinister)
 - SADS - Hello from The Rose God Gave Me (it's SADS, it's glam-punk-metal, 'nuff said)
 - SHERBETS - Iceland Boy from MIRACLE (let yourself be drawn into the surreal magical otherworld of Kenichi's gentle tones)
 - Church of Misery - Killfornia (Ed Kemper) from Master of Brutality (riles you up perfectly and then DAT BASS riff hits at 1:28 & you know shit is GOING DOWNNN)

awww... well, they weren't too active anyway (at least counting their solitary post-hiatus single, lol).

Excellent tracks mentioned so far! I'm particularly fond of the LUNA SEA, Kagrra, and 9GBO choices.
 
Some of my other favorites:
 - BUCK-TICK - Kourin from 13kai wa gekkou (okay, it has an intro before it but jesus it's totally amazing/epic/slow/sinister)
 - SADS - Hello from The Rose God Gave Me (it's SADS, it's glam-punk-metal, 'nuff said)
 - SHERBETS - Iceland Boy from MIRACLE (let yourself be drawn into the surreal magical otherworld of Kenichi's gentle tones)
 - Church of Misery - Killfornia (Ed Kemper) from Master of Brutality (riles you up perfectly and then DAT BASS riff hits at 1:28 & you know shit is GOING DOWNNN)

Definitely agree with Loveless, what a song
 
1) Sink - 9Goats Black Out - 
This is one of those songs that explains a band's soundscape immediately. Really beautiful song.
 
2) Utakata - Kagrra, - 
Ditto. One of the first J-Rock songs I ever listened to and it's simply perfect.
 
3) Vinushka - Dir En Grey - 
If we're missing out intros, we can count the song after right? This song is brilliant; it quickly raised DEG's game from their previous album I feel. Furthermore, it's one of their best songs.
 
4) Utsushiyo Horror Show - NoGoD - http://youtu.be/0MQkj6CCES0
One of my very favourites. Riff-heavy and with an awesome solo, this is one of their better recent tracks.

Thought of making this, since I find it odd that no one ever discussed about their "favorite album openers" here, so yup:
 
Feel free to post your (some of your) favorite openers (max. 4 links and no order needed + doesn't matter if its studio or live) here...and a reminder:
 
Intros are not counted (the definition of "intro" is pretty vague - but I think you get my drift anyway - my excuse would be "just because", sorry!)
 
To start this thread, I will post some of mine (as an example/template if you will):
 
 
1. Tokyo Jihen - Ikiru
http://pann.nate.com/video/215614571
One of those songs I consider to be "the total bangers" of Shiina's repertoire - unusual ("Imogen Heap meets Queen-ish" ), sparsely arranged song ending up with good ol' TJ cast playing up to the max. I see this having a lot potential to surprise even those who are not necessarily fans of this kind of genre - which is why I recommend you to try out the link above (Ultra C live version - not for those who *dislike* Shiina's vocals).
 
2. Capsule - Soratobu Toshikeikaku

Someone might be already saying "but Perez, this is an interlude?!" - no, it's not an interlude. If you are even a bit familiar with house/electro music in general, you know pretty well that "lyricless" full-length songs can be openers as well as sole songs too. I see 'Soratobu' as Capsule's - no, Nakata's most brilliant and creative effort he has ever produced/done during his career. It's not a farce when people say that "good songs make you imagine things more vividly and even "live them" - and 'Soratobu' is worth being the showcase to those opposing the idea. No wonder that it even has a PV done by Ghibli staff (or Ghibli subsidiary staff, JIC)...
 
3. Luna Sea - Loveless

If we have to make a manual on "how to make a good opener", this has to end up there - talk about a way how to introduce the band carefully: the song progresses slowly by not having members appear at the same time but otherwise - and finally ends with all the elements combined together without making certain instruments "drown". Atmospheric, theme-setting number - and perhaps quite legendary too!
 
 

dijest - moar liek dijent ehue
 
anyway, doesn't sound bad but it's really lulzworthy to see how giru' always jump on the "what's popular at the time" bandwagon (from electro-tinged nu-metal to bland poppy barely-rock to post-HC stylings).

lmao dafuq is this XD
 
Would be a lot better if you could actually hear more of MYV's guitarplay. Anyway, weird gospel-pop-combo-thingie~ not sure if want.

My friend did an interview with Lycaon recently, you guys can read it here (in English):
 
http://www.soundofjapan.hu/lycaon-exclusive-interview-english/

thanks so much jig!
 
my response
 
Damm i didn't know you could Climax off of a interview, feeling pretty fucking good right now.
 
 
keeping score:  fav pv: 薔薇~Rose~: 2.... Fav scream: Who's Bad Psycho Party..... Fav look: gossip: 3....  songs: A Box In Beautiful: 3, Royal Order: 2, The End of Delusion: 2 Dahlia: 3, Chains of collar: 3, Alejandro: 3, Jesus: 3 薔薇~Rose~: 2, Pain Killer: 2, Akujo no hohoemi: 2.