Kaleidoscope

For me, 40 minutes is the optimal length. Many death metal masterpieces clock at 35 minutes or less(Atheist's Unquestionable Presence, Deicide's Legion and Entombed's Wolverine Blues come to mind) and I find it somewhat frustrating. 45-60 minutes is still ok in my book, but it's extremely hard for a band to deliver one hour of consistently good music...

So maybe D'espairsRay will comeback too, few days ago they 4 were in a meeting. WELCOME 2017

I don't think a 100 min is possible on CD
 
I am already used to 60-70 min albums but if the average song is about 5 min and I want at least 10 songs, that should be around 50 min. I don't think a full length album should be less than 45 min cuz you know "full length"
 
Song count doesn't really matter as long as album flows well.
 
 
The 420 album would've been better but there are way too many tracks that are similar to one another. It just flows bad

Ah yeah, I loved the Shokran album too, good stuff!
 
My most played albums from last year are probably Napoleon's "Newborn Mind" and Architect's "All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us". The former is just the most passionate and inspired Metalcore (even though they seem to be rooted more in Hardcore) album I've heard in a long time. The lead guitar is clearly what makes this band, but the new vocalist is also an amazing and very fitting addition. As for Architects, I've heard that quite a few people don't consider it their best work - I definitely do and think that the removal of most of the clean vocals and the cold and aggressive atmosphere work perfectly for them. And those vocals man, holy shit.
 
 
As for non-core related stuff, I recently got into Dødsengel. "Imperator" is definitely one of the most interesting (and longest, two and a half hours) Black Metal albums I've heard in a while. The linked song is pretty straightforward compared to the rest of their stuff, but it's definitely worth to check out the whole album. Pretty mindblowing stuff in my opinion.
 
 

What is it with the transition at 1:41?? I was okay with the song until it felt like the song skipped.

The single will cost 1300 yens.
 
Tracklist :
1. Envy Circus
2. 乖離(kairi)
3. Escape Dream Movment

So it's end of the year best-of list time, and I wanted to get involved... but I realized with more and more streaming of music rather than mp3s, and more and more me being lazy and not really listening to as much new stuff as I should: my best of 2016 list would be incomplete and hard to make because what I've been listening to isn't as easily organized by year in Spotify.
 
But I'm a narcissist who still wanted to get in on the fun and write *something* so I decided to highlight some of my favorite, or at least notable for one reason or another, looks from the VK world in 2016. Visual is in the name after all! I know hipsters, such as myself, say that the looks don't matter and it's all about the music, man... but I'll freely admit even though I'm not looking at a picture of the band for 98% of my listening to them, the aesthetics matter and part of the reason I like VK is that I enjoy looking at pretty boys in elaborate costumes rather than bearded dudes in black tshirts.
 
With that in mind here is my partially tongue-in-cheek but also I seriously thought about it 10 Notable VK Looks of 2016:
 
 

Garak’s Vocalist ジュリ

I call this the James Dean x Jesus.
 

Insanity Injection Vocalist Kyouka

Because of that YouTubers react video, this look may be the VK shot heard ‘round the world. “Looks like Kerrigan” is pretty accurate shorthand for Kyouka’s possessed crab/snake cannibal spirit costume that is almost elaborate enough to explain what the hell he’s been doing for the last ten years.
 

ペンタゴン Bassist Minpha

The kawaii-ness is undisputed around these parts… I’m embracing dark Minpha and his crown of demonic scallop shells.
 

乙女国家 Band

I know it’s a VK trope, but I seriously like it when band members all pick a different color and just commit. I’m never going to learn their names, so it helps to just be able to reference “the yellow one who borrowed some gloves from Ensoku’s This is a Pen PV”. Also for anyone else who’s been there: was this photo taken at the ramen ‘museum’ (read: food court) in Yokohama?? It kinda reminds me of that spot.
 

Doak Band

As a rapidly balding dude, I appreciate when even fake-baldness gets some shine in VK. Shout-out to the dude from Codoma A!
 

Avelcain Vocalist Karma

I bow at the altar of Avelcain… and I’m on the record as loving black-suit-wearing VK looks. Add some fucking palpable *zetsubou* and a sword for no real reason!?? I’m sold.
 

Elysion Band

They get my vote for best golden age Matina cosplay of the year. I saw them in June and there was just tons of vinyl and straps and lace and bare thigh and a frilly white dress and… there’s no joke here they just had an awesome/classic look. I don’t even remember what they sounded like, but I remember thinking their outfits and makeup had to take hours to get right before the show.
 

Lack-co. Vocalist Tenten

What you thought I wasn’t going to include this transcendent “it’s coming in nice” puberty mustache dyed red?? You don’t know me very well. He’s got some sort of black sequin freckles happening too for some Annie vibes.
 

Nihilizm Band

Just a look that I think really kills. Those red lace blindfolds are just cool IDK. The member with the bob is a cutie.
 
ギャロ Vocalist Jojo

I always love Jojo’s extremely sparkly lipstick…. And in this video (and others this year) he wins the award for most dangerously low-rise pants in VK. Got them side abs! I also don’t really understand his fork hat, but fuck it if you can’t get weird in VK where can you?
 
Close but no cigar: Hollowgram's grown up/understated black looks, vocalist from More's curls and one satyr horn, Plastic Tree vocalist pushing the bounds of how cool he can make cutting his own hair look
Purposefully Omitted: The Black Swan blackface, any boring not-quite Kamijo look
 
Let me know why I'm wrong and what should have been on this list!
 

I'm pretty sure that Ambitions will make 35xxxv seem like a masterpiece. I still will be checking out the album for the sake of it.

I've been thinking a bit about how this reminds me heavily of Girugamesh...

But, at least with Giru, the sound they were going for was just a super light Giru, whereas this...
These songs really love to oversell themselves, they go for that vast "epic" sort of stadium song feel without anything to back it up, at all. It's empty, shallow and heartless, like it was written by someone else for them, like 90% of modern major pop acts. There's no energy to it, there's no emotion, it's just generic. It's not compelling, it's just slightly nodding whilst I'm doing anything else that's far more interesting.
 
I find it funny that the American label that signed them also produces a lot of similar bands that suffer from similar issues. I'm happy for them if this is their thing, it's not often we see a band of a language other than English make it into the market but at the same time it really sucks because of what they had to give up in order to do so, to be successful you have to tick boxes, the more you appeal to the masses you appeal less to the individual. It's easy to make something that thousands will like but harder to make something that hundreds will love and I suppose at the end of the day you need to ask yourself which matters more.

The last 2 metal album that totally rocked my face off.
 
First is Shokran's Exodus. It is without a doubt a technical prog masterpiece. Amazing production, sick technical guitar work, great vocals, and a cool Egyptian theme to tie it all together. Highly recommend this album. 
 
 
 
The next album is Carcer City's infinite//unknown. It's probably one of the best metalcore releases of 2016 with a ton of prog metal influence. Again recommended, even if metalcore is not your thing. 
 
 
 
 

I've been following this thread for quite a while and many things came up in my head while reading through it. Many people already mentioned things I wanted to say or made valid points, but I'd still like to share a few things from my own point of view and experiences. (and sorry if i repeat some things already stated because i read kinda fast and have a short memory...)

To me, LJ played a huge role in the VK international fanbase and was what really made it feel alive (especially for people who lived too far to attend lives and such and could only rely on the net for the experience). It was very interactive and people shared the shit out of things. Jrock scans was one of the best LJ communities ever and I must've spent hours browsing through their directory just trying to save scans of all my favorite bands. I still have them in my hard drive today and my only regret is that I didn't spend more time on it because all the links from there are dead now (lol). I was one of those people who made a shit ton of graphics and icons so scans were pretty important for me yeah...For a movement that's all about the visuals though the idea of making pretty graphics felt interconnected and made the fandom more fun as a whole. Now that it's practically not a thing anymore the whole appeal of the visuals feels more boring? Another thing I liked about LJ was that you could read your friends' journal entries and learn about their favorite bands, other than the ones you already share. People wrote about their favorite bands all their time, posted PVs and pics, and shared live reports, which I found very fun to read because they were very casual. Around the time LJ died out was around the time everybody's favorite bands started disbanding and a lot of people just left. With the transition to tumblr, like most people mentioned already, it's only reblogs and it feels a lot less interactive, making it hard to find/talk to new friends. (thankfully there's still MH though :>)

Seeing that all my vk friends were leaving even I was feeling the pull of leaving vk forever. I even left my fav band Plastic Tree for a while (probably sometime after their ammonite album released). How dare I, I know. But in between those times I was out of vk I still found myself checking back in the scene once in a while out of curiosity, and found interest in a few newer bands. I just wasn't as crazy active as I was during LJ times. It wasn't until I went to Japan when I attended my very first vk live, which was AvelCain, that I regained all that vk-ness back in me. After seeing such an amazing and fun performance I realized how much I still loved vk, and that was pretty much how I woke up (and here I am now). It's probably different for everyone, but I feel like those who say that it was a fad might just a need a little something to make it all come back again, as it did for me.

Also, I feel like the attitudes of fans might also play a role in the decline. You see a lot of people complaining about the low quality of music these days and that vk is not the same anymore, which I KNOW is very true in many cases and I do this too, but at the same time it puts too much negativity into the fandom and makes everything seem less attractive, and so people leave. The sharing aspect also feels increasingly dead--music sharing wise the reasons are pretty obvious, but even just the talk and spread of vk feels increasingly dead. Again, this can probably lead back to how tumblr is all about the reblogs, not much interaction or discussion. That's why I'm very glad that MH still does what it does today (the monthly recommended tracks, reviews, and great threads like these and the awesome recent oshare and nu-metal kei threads, etc. where we can really discuss and share about vk), because maaaan the vk fandom feels so dead everywhere else.

With the changes in mainstream culture, and Kpop still a thing, I don't see how the newer generation will grow into vk. The only way they'll ever get into it is probably by the influence of a friend. So with that said, keep spreading the vk love people, as cheesy as it sounds lol.

Awesome news! I thought it would have been cool if they included their last three singles, but maybe they are confident enough in their new material, looking forward to it.

Xaa-Xaa will release an albm called 「不幸な迷路」(fukô na meiro) on 2017.03.15.
 
TYPE A : 3500 yens + taxes
CD :
1.入口(iriguchi)
2.不幸の始まり(fukô no hajimari)
3.ぐちゃぐちゃ(guchagucha)
4.排水口(hasui guchi)
5.気付いて(kizui te)
6.人殺し(hitogoroshi)
7.ラストダンス(last dance)
8.落とし穴(Otoshiana )
9.交尾をしてよ(kôbi o shite yo )
10.ユメオチ(yumeochi) ? 
11.最後の歌(saigo no uta)
12.出口(deguchi)
DVD :
1.ぐちゃぐちゃ( MUSIC VIDEO ) (guchagucha)
2.オフショット集 (off-shot collection)
 
TYPE B : 3100 yens + taxes
CD :
1.入口(iriguchi)
2.不幸の始まり(fukô no hajimari)
3.ぐちゃぐちゃ(guchagucha)
4.排水口(hasui guchi)
5.気付いてk(kizui te)
6.人殺し(hitogoroshi)
7.ラストダンス(last dance)
8.恋人ごっこ(koibito gokko)
9.寄り道(yorimichi)
10.落とし穴(otochiana)
11.交尾をしてよ(kôbi o shite yo)
12.ユメオチ(yumeochi) 
13.最後の歌(saigo no uta)
14.出口(deguchi)
 
 
 

 
 
To promote the release of the album, an one man tour called 「ソォルドアウト2」 will begin on 2017.04.07 at 名古屋ハートランド  and will finish on 2017.04.30 at 大阪MUSE
 
 

As someone who has been here since the early days of Tainted World, I can only say that I agree that a lot of the decline seems to be due to a lack of exchange online. When my interest in VK sparked again a few months ago, MH was pretty much the only place I could go to, since the rest of the international community is way too spread. It's virtually impossible to have a proper discussion about recent stuff going on in the scene outside of MH, and as @Disposable said, message boards are more or less a thing of the past (although I feel like the atmosphere here is way less hostile by now, or maybe it's just me growing a thicker skin with age). There are some large facebook pages like the Visual Loner blog which are up to date and would theoretically allow people to exchange, but somehow most facebook users can't be bothered beyond "reacting" to a post or linking some names under it. I still feel that YT plays quite a large role in the decline of interest too, mainly because it was an easy way to discover new bands through the recommended or related videos. But since YT got crippled by all the copyright nonsense, it's hard use it the way people used it a few years ago.
 
As for bands who could fill the void girugamesh, D'espairsRay etc left, there really seems to be no band which I feel has what it takes (except for maybe Dadaroma, they have quite a big presence on YT compared to your average VK band and recently got a big boost through the Fine Bros video). It also seems like it's never new musicians who form the more appreciated bands, but always people that have been or used to be popular before, so there is rarely this feeling of novelty that bands like girugamesh had when they started out. Plus many bands feel very inconsistent or have too much output to really leave an expression.
 
Here in Germany, we still have a few concerts every year though and some of them seem to sell quite well - from what I've heard, Nocturnal Bloodlust's show was very crowded.

To be frank at the beginning, this year was a tedious sit-through when it came down to Japanese music. Having heard most of my favourites by the end of March, the later months were a hit-and-miss, deviating between top-tier acts and absolute distastrous music that I could not find it within myself to swallow. It was therefore a heinous task to collect two handfuls of releases that I appreciated enough, resulting in a high spike of listening hours throughout the month of December where I was desperately scouring and ransacking the internet for things that I had perhaps missed. Doing so for international releases was equally as difficult, as I simply returned to the roots of my listening-experiences too late and began exploring beyond the borders of Japan again somewhere in the midst of August. Catching up and gaining a proper impression of everything wondrous released this year did not lie within my capabilities, as there was too little time left. I therefore worked with what I knew and felt comfortable with, rather than outstretching too far out of my comfort zone to perhaps pick up a few ambigious releases here and there. 
 
 
Japanese Picks:
 

「01. "地球" by 摩天楼オペラ」
 

 
Without second thoughts, "地球" may be named 摩天楼オペラ's greatest effort to this very date. There is no smothering the tremendously burgeoning acceleration with which this band grows in power metal's theatric scene — it is therefore as predicted how this group is now making a renowned name for itself outside of visual kei's tight fingers' grip, and continues to conquer the seas beyond Japan, surprising more and more ears around the world.
 
01. PANDORA
02. BURNING SOUL
03. 致命傷
04. YOU&I
05. 君と見る風の行方
06. Good Bye My World
07. 青く透明なこの神秘の海へ
08. FANTASIA
09. SILENT SCREAM
10. ether
11. 讃えよう 母なる地で
12. 地球
13. 嘘のない私で
 
「02. "SOLOIST" by 清春」
 

 
This year, a much larger fondness for soloist 清春 grew immensely through the first magical spin that was given to this warm, seasoned record. It provides every bit of a crackling ambience experienced around a large bonfire set on a secluded piece of beach, yet where flames would normally take over, it is the man's very own voice sending tepid musical streams through one's system.
 
01. ナザリー
02. 夢心地メロディー
03. EDEN
04. DIARY
05. ロラ
06. 瑠璃色
07. FUGITIVE
08. MELLOW
09. MOMENT
10. QUIET LIFE
11. 海岸線
12. メゾピアノ
13. 麗しき日々よ
 
「03. "心・技・体" by ダウト」
 

 
Issued in January, "心・技・体" remained a durable favourite throughout all of 2016. Holding steadfast to their jazz-influences and soft-rock incentive, ダウト waver not and refuse to yield to the overwhelming turmoil inhabiting visual kei's current questionable, and unstable state. Emotive and tight on the heart's strings, especially the latter half of the album exceeds expectations.
 
01. 心技体
02. OH! MATSURI MONSTER
03. ダァァティィ・ロマンチッカァァ
04. 53
05. 恋ができない
06. 綺麗事
07. 華麗なる外道
08. 傷心パラドックス
09. TAXI
10. おねだり
11. 国立競技党
12. SM
 
「04. "アトム 未来派 No.9" by BUCK-TICK」
 

 
The paramount, anointed kings of Japanese music continue their succesful streak of outstanding musicianship without a visible end in sight. Blessed be us, as the legendary BUCK-TICK's presence in our midst would be sorely missed. Fresh and tireless energy pours yet again from "アトム 未来派 No.9", a genuine and heartfelt succession to the veterans' longlasting, exemplary career. 
 
01. cum uh sol nu -フラスコの別種-
02. PINOA ICCHIO -躍るアトム-
03. DEVIL’S WINGS
04. El Dorado
05. 美 NEO Universe
06. BOY septem peccata mortalia
07. 樹海
08. THE SEASIDE STORY
09. FUTURE SONG -未来が通る-
10. 曼珠沙華 manjusaka
11. Cuba Libre
12. 愛の葬列
13. NEW WORLD -beginning-
 
「05. "Baby who wanders" by DECAYS」
 

 
Exiting the catastrophic and bitter era of 2016 with an arrangement of fireworks was definitely not too problematic a task for the ambitious movement that DECAYS brings us. Bringing the two further ends of the Japanese music scene together, Die combines a plethora of talents and conjures up the enthusiastic "Baby who wanders", an all-purpose, all-around jewel in the rough. 
 
01. Aesthetics of the transgression
02. Zero Paradise
03. 愛と哀を遺さず… ＜Baby who wanders Ver.＞
04. Drifting litter
05. Where are you going?
06. Vagabond
07. Imprisonment Leaving
08. シークレットモード
09. HELLO! NEW I
10. Eve
11. Rana
12. D/D
13. 綺麗な指
 
「06. "ULTRA" by SCHAFT」
 

 
It would be criminal not to include this ambigious industrial outfit awoken from slumber after nearly two decades of what appeared to be eternal hibernation. And awarded we are, for "ULTRA" is packing harsh volume and distortion that the unit composed of the legendary 今井寿 and 藤井麻輝 —who are no longer held by the restraints of an assemblage of guest-musicians— have convincingly made their very own cohesive sound. 
 
01. The loud engine
02. Vice
03. drift
04. SAKASHIMA
05. Der Zauberlehrling
06. Anti-Hedonist
07. ReVive
08. swan dive
09. Adam’s rib
10. Leidenschaft
11. 魅
 
「07. "WILLS" by HOLLOWGRAM」
 

 
Ryo and the myth of Midas are two apples from the same tree; everything they touch, turns to pure gold. "WILLS" is a short, yet emotional rollercoaster miraculously withstanding the unquestionable weight that Ryo must be feeling upon his shoulders with the amount of tasks at hand. It floats beautifully and does not stray from its dream-like purpose, not for even a mere second. 
 
01. Lucent room
02. ラブレターレイン
03. indicencia
04. Kalmia
05. Where you go
 
「08. "CORD" by Angelo」
 

 
Already anticipating for Angelo's new work to fly far under the radar, there did not happen to arise any bewilderment whatsoever of how disproportionately this album was received. A pity, as the super-group devised a praise-worthy, foot-to-the-ground hard rock record uncompromised by dilly-dallying or any further nonsense. A sublime effort, and uncontested by many of their successors.
 
01. Umbilical cord
02. Cut
03. リテラシー
04. PROTOCOL
05. 嗤う月
06. Sorrow tomorrow
07. JUDGMENT
08. FIELD OF GOD
09. Daybreakers
10. CONNECT
 
「09. "憧憬、睡蓮と向日葵" by cali≠gari」
 

 
While appreciating cali≠gari not only for their peculiar oddities and quirks at random, but instead taking to their chance encounters with beautiful simplicity, "憧憬、睡蓮と向日葵" hits the hammer right on the nail's head; with melodies aplenty, the mini-album is a positively upbeat joy that doesn't take too many hours to grow in to, but then again can be repeated for many long evenings.
 
01. 薫風、都会、行き行きて
02. ギラギラ
03. 陽だまり炎
04. 蜃気楼とデジャヴ
05. アレガ☆パラダイス
06. 憧憬、睡蓮と向日葵
 
「10. "Grimoire" by forCroiX-フォークロア-」
 

 
Out of thin air, forCroiX-フォークロア- entrusted us with their headmost (and unfortunately, likely determinative) release after a four-year silence. While formed in 2012, the group has lived mostly out of our field of vision (and remains there, for they immediately dove deep yet again) — regrettably so, as their album "Grimoire" bears a courtly sound reminiscent of the magnificent days of a more gothic-redolent age of visual kei. 
 
01. resent
02. Limited Governor
03. Distracture
04. 傀儡destination
05. Rusty
06. Dystopia～断罪の聖堂～
07. Vagrant
08. 月ノ涙
 

International Picks:
 

「01. "Jumalten aika" by Moonsorrow」
 

 
With no contestant over the course of the year, "Jumalten aika" easily takes the highest spot in this list, overpowering with immense soundscapes and epic structures stretching far across tundra and frozen lands, reaching not only to the Scandinavian shores, but far beyond. Moonsorrow capture the essence of life and the spirits that give life, doing so through unbelievable legends and tales woven together into yet another Finnish magnum opus.
 
CD-1
01. Jumalten aika
02. Ruttolehto incl. Päivättömän päivän kansa
03. Suden tunti
04. Mimisbrunn
05. Ihmisen aika (Kumarrus pimeyteen)
CD-2
01. Soulless (Grave Cover)
02. Non Serviam (Rotting Christ Cover)
 
「02. "Triangle" by Schammasch」
 

 
There are no intelligible words for the monstrous enormity that is Schammasch's "Triangle", a superlative journey through the spiritual cosmos and yonder of the mere corporeal body. The avant-garde Swiss ensemble has not merely created a record; the three-way genesis is a bible —with the possibility to change one's view on existence— to those who can decipher its intentions, with an ability to transcend the human mind.
 
CD-1
01. Crepusculum
02. Father's Breath
03. In Dialogue With Death
04. Diluculum
05. Consensus
06. Awakening From The Dream Of Life
CD-2
01. The World Destroyed By Water
02. Satori
03. Metanoia
04. Above The Stars Of God
05. Conclusion
CD-3
01. The Third Ray Of Light
02. Cathartic Confession
03. Jacob's Dream
04. Maelstrom
05. The Empyrean
 
「03. "Dust Bowl Jokies" by Dust Bowl Jokies」
 

 
Coming from Sweden are the sleaze-infested Dust Bowl Jokies, but with their hearts lying not far from West Hollywood's notorious Sunset Strip, home to many an 1980's glam rock outfit. As their moniker implies, the young group seems to take inspiration from the dry desert and its gypsy-like superstition and legends — the record therefore has an impeccible design where it serves like a movie script, rather than a mere album alone.
 
01. Mama Cocha
02. The Moon Hanger Grove
03. Borderland
04. Old Fashioned Country Canvas
05. Pink Flamingos
06. Rawbone
07. Bad Juju
08. Hogs And Heifers
09. Son Of The Sun
10. Lulu
 
「04. "Night Hides The World" by Spellcaster」
 

 
The fairly recently established juniors in Spellcaster bear the legacy of traditional heavy metal acts upon their backs as if this were a weightless matter. Their most novel endeavor comes by the name of "Night Hides The World", a young take on the traditions of old — and to be fair, the production quality is the one single element separating this group from their mighty predecessors thirty years foregoing.
 
01. Aria 
02. Night Hides The World
03. The Lost Ones 
04. Betrayal 
05. I Live Again
06. The Accuser 
07. The Moon Doors
08. Prophecy 
 
「05. "For Crying Out Loud" by Shiraz Lane」
 

 
As an absolute blast from the past, Shiraz Lane have emerged from their Finnish time-machine in long hair, denim shorts and high-top sneakers. With a close absence of modern influences, the group still manages to take hold of an entirely individual style, procuring themselves a place in the hearts of those reminiscent of their youths, and the ones longing back to an era where music, —perhaps— was spoken more truly.
 
01. Wake Up
02. Momma's Boy
03. House Of Cards
04. Begging For Mercy
05. Same Ol’ Blues
06. Mental Slavery
07. Behind The 8-Ball
08. For Crying Out Loud
09. Bleeding
10. M.L.N.W
11. Kill Me (With Your Love)
 
「06. "False Highs, True Lows" by Plebeian Grandstand」
 

 
Positively vile and absurd, Plebeian Grandstand might very well be the next sludge-metal act to arise upon the scaffolding they so deserve. While their previous releases were purely chaotic mixtures of hardcore and violence, "False Highs, True Lows" has mutated through an exposure to raw black metal influences, turning it in to an absolutely distraught and murderous apparition from the very depths of the nine circles of hell.
 
01. Mal Du Siecle
02. Low Empire
03. Tributes And Oblivions
04. Volition
05. Mineral Tears
06. Oculi Lac
07. Tame The Shapes
08. Eros Culture
 
「07. "Post Pop Depression" by Iggy Pop」
 

 
A tribute to the late David Bowie, or a complete musical interpretation of Iggy Pop's longlasting legacy? Perhaps being a little bit of both, "Post Pop Depression" siphons just that what its title refers to; it is moody, oblique and hypnotic, a middle-finger to the very world and yet so relatable on a multitude of levels (perhaps that being exactly why). What a powerful farewell, what a glorious and complete manifesto.
 
01. Break Into Your Heart
02. Gardenia
03. American Valhalla
04. In The Lobby
05. Sunday
06. Vulture 
07. German Days
08. Chocolate Drops
09. Paraguay
 
「08. "Mystical Future" by Wildernessking」
 

 
Black metal from South-Africa — this is a correlation not often predicted, and therefore did Wildernessking meander within the musical scene without too many loud exclamations. However, upon the very first listen to "Mystrical Future", it became clear that these men from below the equator have conjured up something truly unpredictable and magical, something belonging only to themselves.
 
01. White Horses
02. I Will Go To Your Tomb
03. To Transcend
04. With Arms Like Wands
05. If You Leave
 
「09. "The Armor Of Ire" by Eternal Champion」
 

 
Eternal Champion are journeying toward their grasp on might and glory, with a sword in their right hand, and a shield in their left. Thunderous and heroic, the epic "The Armor Of Ire" rampages over a battlefield drenched in blood, while it gets ours pumping and running coarser through our veins. The United States have not yet given up on their challenge declared to their contestants in the ancient Europe. 
 
01. I Am The Hammer
02. The Armor Of Ire
03. The Last King Of Pictdom
04. Blood Ice
05. The Cold Sword
06. Invoker
07. Sing A Last Song Of Valdese
08. Shade Gate
 
「10. "Kodama" by Alcest」
 

 
One does not have to enjoy atmospheric black metal to understand that the talent behind Alcest is unquestionably a musical mastermind. His subtle handling of musical instruments and ethereal phonetic accentuation give life to transcendental French creations truly as beautiful as thousands of individuals claim. If we had some knowledge on the voices of angels, Neige would come close to turning myth into certainty.
 
01. Kodama
02. Eclosion
03. Je suis d'ailleurs
04. Untouched
05. Oiseaux de proie
06. Onyx
07. Notre sang et nos pensées

45-50 min has always been a sweet spot for me

35-47 min or so
anything above that has to PROVE its length

12 inches

Up until 45 minutes should be the standard. Anything longer than that can be quite tiresome if the mood isn't right.

I usually prefer shorter, to-the-point albums without any excess fat. So around 25-45 mins approx. But yeah, it depends on the genre and the particular band.

That depends on the genre, the type of music the band plays, how good the songwriting is and so on. But there's no such thing as a perfect album lenght, but a general thumb rule for me is that the more agressive the music is, the shorter the album should be. There's always certain exceptions of course, but just in general.
 
But for agressive music such as grindcore, thrash metal, death metal, hardcore, crust, "war metal" (aka really violent brand of black/death metal) and so on I prefer it to be between 15-50. For other genres such as ambient, (slower/symphonic/more atmospheric) black metal and doom metal I'll easily take 80-140 minutes playtime.
 
But it depends on how well the album is set up, how good the songwriting is and all that. So for me, the perfect album lenght can be anything between 10 minutes and 140+ minutes.
 
Number of songs however doesn't matter. If an album has 25 songs and play for 60 minutes or have one song and play for 60 minutes has nothing to say. No difference whatsoever. It's about the styleof the music and the songwriting. The general quality of the music.

But what if a spent counterculture is actually more subversive than an active one?
 
For me, there are two very different ways of thinking about countercultures and the transgressive work they are performing. The first is where you try to build rapport, get more people interested in the subculture, then flag it up as some kind of collective protest. In practice, this has always been the mode by which identity politics operated in the public domain--through aggregation, coalition-building, and ramping up the numbers. There are good reasons for this, but there are problems with it, especially for its cultural parallel. Some of us here might be familiar with a book published some decades ago by Dick Hebdige on British youth subcultures (punks, mods, etc.), in which he observed that every subculture that has historically evolved in ostensible protest against popular/mainstream culture cannot elude the inevitable fate of commodification by social and cultural institutions. This spells the death of that subculture either because the ‘transgressive’ force has by that point been entirely neutralized through its absorption into mass culture, or because the “angry young men” who are in them just to make a deafening aesthetic/political statement about themselves have migrated to another fledging subculture en masse before that could happen. I have a hunch that the "scene culture" today that Disposable alluded to might be linked to precisely this. Just look at how cultural scenes have become increasingly dispersed, and interest groups increasingly fragmented (and alienated from one other) since the last decades of the 20th century.
 
The other way of thinking about transgression, I think, is to simply not concern oneself with it. This might sound somewhat counterintuitive but I’ve always been struck by how it’s actually incredibly difficult in this day and age to be totally useless. Think of NEETs who are sitting around at home relishing how they aren't contributing to society; but by being held up in the mass media as exemplary negative "case studies" that parents ought to dutifully warn their children about, they are nevertheless serving an important social function. All of this is a very laborious way of saying that even as we admit to ourselves that it's no longer possible to be radically transgressive in the way most of us had hoped to be at some point in our lives, at least the Wildean decadent who doesn’t give a damn whether the subculture he’s participating in is still relevant or subversive wouldn’t rehearse the problematic we encountered in the first case--where, by reacting violently against the mass culture we absolutely detest we’re in some sense being held hostage to it and playing by its terms. Which reminds me of something Slavoj Zizek said: sometimes, doing nothing is the most violent thing to do. He isn’t taken very seriously by most of his colleagues within academic circles, but I think there’s at least a grain of truth in what he said there.
 
In any case...
 
If nothing else, people who stick by visual kei even after it’s no longer the fad are usually those I enjoy talking to the most. I had an uncannily similar experience in classical music: over there, the same handwringing we’re having now in this thread had taken place approximately half a century ago and by this point everyone I know has basically given up trying to ‘make it relevant’. Thankfully, it’s always more fun associating with people who consume a cultural product because they genuinely enjoy it, and not because they want to appropriate it (consciously or not) as a proxy to make a conspicuous statement about themselves.
 

Time moves on and irrelevant art forms and their instruments get thrown into the very crowded dustbin of history. If you have any doubt about this, I'd like to ask you to name the top 10 premier bebop musicians today, or how about something that sounds like it was from the paradise garage? how about poodle rock? is anyone playing like Weber lately while painting like Monet and catching the salon by storm? They're all gone from the popular consciousness and live as mere perverse retro curiosities ( new post-punk and goth rock fucking eww ) for a handful of people. Scenes, genres and movements always come, go and never come back in the same form. If you ask an enthusiast he'll no doubt tell you about all the killer up and comers, but that's all bunk and they know it too. Nobody's touching Billie Holliday, there's not going to be a new Beatles, nobody's turning back the clock and doing nu-Bach in a manner that won't be scoffed upon by anyone who's serious and in the know. Visual kei in that regard is, to be quite honest, finished. I'd say its creative, artistic peak ended right when the turn of the millenia labels dissolved, and the European boom was caused both by the hot air from that period and the aptness of visual kei musicians to appropriate the emo/scene stylings as mentioned before (see the mallgoth act D'espairsray and nu metal Girugamesh for proof of this ). Visual kei's adaptability has given it such a lifeline for sure. There's not a whole lot of genres that can keep moving the needle and making money both domestically and internationally the way that it has. We've literally outlived and survived the deaths of hair metal, goth and mallcore. Probably only the general metal subculture can boast such a staying power, and they too have been struggling to stay on the surface since all that Anthrax skate metal and the alt-rock Metallica boom faded away. Now even big names can't sell out in fucking _Finland_ and underground classics struggle to pull. In my pessimistic thinking we are at the tail end of this rock guitar saga, and it's due to the gradual withering away of rock music's cultural and demographic base. 
 
I have my own fantasies about the evolution of visual kei as an active counterculture as opposed to a dull consumer culture. Agendered danger lurking in the metro stations near you; they'll know us by the trail of blood and the smell of hairspray. It's all complete fantasy however that I entertain with like three people max. In reality I know we're over and done with as a seismic cultural force. This however doesn't mean that everything is lost. While I don't think MH contributed to the fad beginning or ending, I certainly think MH has contributed massively to the staying power of visual kei on the internet in an age where everything else is disappearing. That Japanese indie analogy is an apt to make, because there's no reason why we shouldn't be in that same position had there not been these stalwarts of vk culture like MH have withstood the storms of the passing time. This was achieved by the unending dedication and efforts of the core-group that keep coming here year after year after year. If there were double the people with as much heart, perseverance and ability, who knows where we would be. Could the boom period had been extended by the valiant and most importantly of all, smart and applicable endeavors of a few dozen dedicated enthusiasts? I don't know. Bless this website either way and all you people who keep coming and contributing.
 
I won't dare to wager ( but i'll haughtily speculate ) why the laptop took over rock 'n roll, but stuff like the global demographic shifts were just too much for it overcome. The popular sphere has drastically diversified both nationally and racially. The stuffy dadrock crowd is losing their death grip on the entertainment zeigeist and big festival lineups are a testament to this. The rock bands pulling the big crowds are really fucking old, and the audience is only a notch younger. Sure the vk bands can draw a garage-full of people and enjoy the company of a few snappy young women — that's it though, no one else cares. The faucet has dwindled down to a point where it is increasingly harder for bands to sustain themselves. It just happens to be a form of music that doesn't speak to the majority of people anymore, not to the young person in school or the higher cultural crowd either for that matter. Electronic music is thriving both commercially and artistically, even hip hop is still doing a fabulous job of innovating itself; all the while one of our biggest newcomers ripped off a decade old deathcore album just last year. Even selling CD's in this day and age is dated, and labels are dying to adjust before the inevitable fall. The electronic underground, even hip hop has managed to adjust and evolve to a degree in the way music is released and spread ( a lot of the big names aren't even releasing full LP's anymore. Just songs, for free on youtube and whatever ). 
 
I'd honestly like to know what kind of social factors contributed to the rise of scene culture. Remember those bands like BrokeNCYDE, BOTDF and etc.? Where were we at the time, as a culture, that stuff like that was tapping into our consciousness. Nothing happens in a vacuum and people don't just decide what to think, feel or do out of the blue. There are reasons for everything in the social and economic fabric of societies and It's an interesting question fo' sure.
 
 I know my way enough that if I want to make an impression, I wouldn't go telling a cool stranger by four euro latte's that my taste in music is essentially the Japanese Poison and Coal Chamber. I'd embarrass myself either way if I left it at that or started nervously flinging my hands and explaining how deep down this culture is really gr8 and transgressive art. My heart stays true to bijuaru kei either way. I'm going down with the ship and I'll keep on making-a-fool of myself on a daily basis. So that's why this is my favorite thread, because I have a hard time of letting go of the glory days of my youth and its music, endlessly try to rationalise it by intellectual gymnastics. While my death slowly approaches and even the last patches of grey hair are falling out, in my mind I'm still young and full of cum, ready for adventure.