DogManX

That's their image right now. And japanese entertainment industry is all about characters. It's a cheap attempt at giving a sense of individuality that doesn't exist in modern japans daily life. Just look at Kyos new homepage. Ridiculous. It's a shamelessly overdone exploitation of his persona for commercial uses. I don't believe for a second Kyo had any say in this. Judging from that they may have had their relationship peak when they wrote "The Marrow Of A Bone"? Makes sense for me. I also hear these guys all the time calling the new albums post-WtD "uninspired american metal" or whatever. Personally i think WtD and TMOAB were their most casual rock albums, and i have yet to find any band that makes music like in the last three ones. And I sense if i find one, it might come from europe instead

It would have been vital for them to change band members from time to time or doing side projects. I can well imagine it's extremely exhausting to be confronted with this band and members every bloody day. If it comes down to it, the driving force behind the band are just Kaoru and Kyo anyway. And I could never imagine any of the two doing anything else than Dir en grey ever (yeah I know Kyo's poetry..but that was not really different). Speaking for the others, it's not unusual for bands to "take turns" with the members, and it's of course vital for the spirit of the band to have band members who are actually enthusiastic about it and don't feel they just "have to do it" because they can't do anything else or have been restricted to do only that for such a long time. So it's good for Shinya to have these side projects. I think he needs them.

I'll just call it afterthoughts to page one I love being stupid

They have their own trends, obviously. I cannot see how one can't see the patterns in clothing or making music, especially in VK. I mean most of the new neo-VK bands are hardly distinguishable from each other in both ways.

Oh yeah, sry for that.

I'll dig what Arithmetica says. And that's why the gazette are just so bad. They are! And i'll fully agree that I only say that because they are popular, because everyone from my ex-girlfriend to any fucking site i'm on advertises this shit band. They don't deserve the fame! The music they do is forgettable! I bet their fans buy their music, turn off the volume and just stare at the booklet instead. Because that's all they're good for! Ok quit the joking, I actually wanted to give my unpopular music opinion on a band that is just a little bit worse than the gazette..which means as bad as the smell of a dead skunk's ass: UNSRAW. This is another band which gained a strange amount of hype. People told me "they're great, bc they're soo brutal and shit. Kinda like Dir en grey!" So I gave them a listen and I found absolutely no comparison to ANY VK band I heard until now. On one hand there are bands like Deathgaze who are fairly brutal for a VK band, but put enough thought into it to make listens enjoyable. On the other hand, there's Unsraw. The musicians sound like they just learned to play their instruments right before their first recording, the vocalist has a HORRIBLE singing voice (try to sing while drinking lemon juice, that's the best way to imitate him) and the songs are nothing but a soulless bunch of uninspired shit. The whole band concept seemed to be "BRUTAL, BRUUTAAL" with all they got (nothing) and that's it. It astonishes me that some people actually liked that. Too good the band isn't anymore. Split up bc of creative differences, yeah guess why's that. There are only two songs of they I liked and ironically they were both ballads. @Pandabear Deathgaze copied quite a lot. Undead fact is a total ripoff of Bullet for my valentine's waking the demon f.e.

It didn't really surprise me with Shinya. He is just that way. I've long asked myself when he'll finally have the guts to quit Dir en grey. We all know he highly feels uncomfortable in the band right now (ongaku no hito 2012) and he still loves to be a woman with all he does.

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He means older songs they haven't played YET? I already saw people suggesting songs like kodou or ain't afraid to die.. but come on. Wouldn't we all love to see updated Cage, Erode, , Yurameki, Egnyris Cimredopyh etc.--? Songs they REALLY haven't played quite in a while?

The Deeper Vileness all the way! 1. 9goats Black Out - Romeo 2. Moi Dix Mois - Vizard 3. Deluhi - G.A.L.D. 4. Chthonic - Revert To Mortal Territory 5. Sigh - Taste Defeat 6. Sigh - Iconoclasm In The 4th Desert 7. Head Phones President - Reality 8. The Piass - 奇生虫 9. Sendai Kamotsu - 送る言葉2 10. Behemoth - Modern Iconoclasts So much Sigh in there lastly.. but I'd go again with Sendai Kamotsu, great new song.

Yes yes, there are Dir en grey fans who are, huh, let's say "overly devoted" to this band...or to Kyo. But already the lesser intense argumentations can create big fuss, as I remember. On one forum there was a 40 page discussion over the seriousness of Kyo, originating in a comment that merely said Kyos english in WtD was awful. It surely is a phenomenom with the Dir en grey fans. But.. band is still great, so no problem

@nekkichi I think there will be a "pause" for now on rerecordings, after unraveling. Don't think it will stop though. I'd rather imagine the ruten no tou acoustic to be as crazy as the unraveling unplugged. It would somehow just fit with the song.

Come on, we've had enough DVDs for now. This is really not worth it. I'll stick with the single, the rest will be uploaded on yt anyway..and probably even with subs, bc the Deg management notoriously doesn't give a damn about that.

so what will he do on screen? acting super-cool like he always does? "hey look i'm miyavi, i'm crossing my fingers how neat is that masafruckers?" the only thing he got for acting is a face, the rest always ends up terribly embarassing when he's presenting himself to western people. sry, just wanted to.. even up the vibe a bit..

I find it strange for you to ask that in such a forum... i mean the possibility of "JRock" or VK being heard here on MH is relatively high, isn't it? I might ask you if you for a change listen to something else than Jpop (and as for me, my track record is relatively balanced in terms of (/not/jrock/whatever) if you go through the previous pages, as for most of the others here), but I don't since it makes no sense Nothing for me there lol 1. Obscura - Velocity 2. exist trace - Knife 3. Deadlock - Kingdom Of The Dead 4. Cannabis Corpse - Slaves To The Chron 5. Belphegor - Pest Teufel Apokalypse 6. Sendai Kamotsu - 燃える闘魂 ~ライカ エジソンのテーマ～ 7. Defiled - Stench Of Grudge 8. Lil Wayne - Da Blues 9. The Meads Of Asphodel - The Watchers Of Catal Huyuk 10. DMX - We Right Here Weak list, but Moeru Toukon is pretty neat. Hits in like a bomb

I'd go with Purinsu too. 1. 9goats Black Out - 天使 2. Nega - DIS. 3. Moi Dix Mois - Lamentful Miss 4. Girugamesh - nobody 5. Malice Mizer - Transylvania 6. Chthonic - Resurrection Pyre 7. Versailles - Serenade 8. Nightmare - livEvil 9. Dir en grey - 朔－Saku－ 10. The Piass - 腐体華～ふたいばな～ Decided to write the artists in roman instead of kanji, hate that copying. Uh, hard fight between the last three ones, but eventually I have to go with Chthonic. One of the best songs on the new album.

Not for me.. the only one I'd choose is D, but the song I don't like at all. 1. Chthonic - The Aroused 2. Behemoth - Before The Æons Came 3. Old Man's Child - Unholy Vivid Innocence 4. Cannabis Corpse - Gateways To Inhalation 5. Immolation - Swallow The Fear 6. Lil Wayne - Get Down 7. ナイトメア - 砂 8. Versailles - Desert Apple 9. Galneryus - The Garden Of The Goddess 10. D - 背徳の蜜は苦よもぎのように Good list, I'd choose all together but for now Chthonic is enough.

The band I'm currently listening to is "The meads of asphodel" from britain. I found out about this band over popular japanese black metallers Sigh, whose keyboardist did an album with them. The music TMOA do is a sweet mixture of folk and black metal. The songs usually are typically structured like black metal songs you'd expect from Mayhem or Immortal. They, though, convey alot more melody, which is the key driving point behind the sound and sets this band apart from other colleagues of the genre. Of course also the folk metal influence plays a big role, almost every imaginable instrument has been used so far to create a sound which sends you to the central middle east of the early centuries A.C., although the band doesn't hesitate to use a great amount of synthies to add to the atmosphere. The vocals are as gurgling guttural as they can possibly get, setting a crazy contrast to the very melodic sound that comes with it. The drums and guitars are fairly simple, while last come up with neat solos once in a while. Production quality is not intended to be bad, but rather reflect what this band was and is able to afford for recording. But it always fits perfect with the mood of each album. The lyric content consists of themes about war, religion (mainly christianity) and social critics. It's difficult to say by which they're influenced, and even more whith whom man could compare them to. I guess if you mix up Bathory and Sigh, you'll get a vague idea of what their sound is made of. Here's a listening example.

So, has anyone actually got to listen into the best of collection of reproduced Sendai Kamotsu songs, or even got a hold on the record? What do you guys think? First of all, the reproduction quality is so-so. It's not bad, but I would have loved a bit more power especially of the guitars. The drums sound awesome in Kamisama(...), but not so in other songs like Saipan or Chenchen-teki aijo koji, where they're even overpowered by midi clapping samples. Speaking of midi samples, man that new midi church organ in Kuririn Manson is unnecessary, the most ugly thing i've experienced on this record definitely. Chibas voice track seems also to not have been layered carefully onto the other tracks, sometimes it simply overpowers the instrumentals, which is a pity because ultimately what kept me to listen to Sendai Kamotsu was the up-par composition quality which successfully held balance with Chibas craziness. For the music, it's what we would expect from a Nightmare remake. The overall composition has not changed, apart from some of Sattys guitar solos (which don't really improve anything in comparison to the originals). So the usual deal basically. Chiba has still his crazy falsettos and roarings, and didn't even bother to polish up parts on the old songs where he slightly missed the high notes, instead just redoing it. Well, it's Sendai Kamotsu after all, so it has a kind of comedic effect to it. The two new songs fit pretty well into the rest of the songs The electronics and member choirs on HERO work very well, and it certainly creates an overall feeling of Chibas soloalbum of last year. Makes a good gig finisher. Okuru Kotoba2 is also a pretty damn good song, Sendai Kamotsu in bestform. i'm not an analyst master so I leave it at that. For the choice of the remade songs, well, I don't think it was necessary for about 4/5 of the songs to appear because some of them have been just made mere 4 years ago. I can understand that they can't re-release due to label switching, but still it felt too soon and like a sellout-coup (which it is anyway). Instead they would have been much better of with an EP containing the older tracks from 2001-2004 plus the two new tracks. Certainly also because two of the remakes didn't exist as non-demo songs until now, so it would have been pleasing enough. For the rest I personally prefer most of the originals with maybe 2 or 3 exceptions. How do you type in these stars??

I'd go with GOKU. That song is a head banger. rentrer en soi isn't bad as well. 1. Defiled - Fatal Intrigue 2. Dir en grey - 鬼眼－kigan－ 3. Feeling B - Frosch Im Brunnen 4. Sigh - The Soul Grave 5. Opeth - Nepenthe 6. デスゲイズ - ディエスイレ (genocide and mass murder ver.) 7. Lynch. - Anemone 8. Malice Mizer - 記憶と空 9. Sigh - Iconoclasm In The 4th Desert 10. Versailles - The Umbrella Of Glass Great list. Most of my japanese favorites in there. I'll go with Anemone, very chilling.

Ok got that. I'd just point out to sai that it would be unhealthy to connect a mere assertion of a bands reason to do solos with a resulting lack of quality. That's what I meant with not critizising the formula, but what actually comes out of it. And if it's bad, I'd not refer to the assertion that they had coolness pressure and it simply didn't work out this time, but rather "analyse" for myself what precicely musically didn't match with my expectations and be done with it. But that's only my beer to that.

No it doesn't. If bands have a certain formula on inserting soli regularly, the focus of critizism should not be on the formula, but of the management of the soli itself. You can't dismiss musical products by referring to the fact that those products are mass ware. It might be a poor and redundant attempt to do music, but the quality is only affected if your personal expectations are not hit, which you nicely demonstrated in your comment.

Who cares if these solos are "obligatory"? If they are nicely put, that's all that should matter. If I listen to something, I at least don't waste daytime bragging and complaining about it, and then still listen to it at the end of the day.

Wow he surely enjoyed the spotlight. And he reminds me of Behemoth with his costume.