nullmoon

Had this been an album of live one-takes, I imagine there would be just as many detractors. “Wasting time and money in a studio playing old shit?! Just give us a new album already!!!”
 
 

Tell me about it. The fact that they missed all of those but heavily represented the shittier remakes is beyond me. Unless the Obscure remake is there to highlight a low point in the band's career? We are trawling through their history after all
 
Skipping Macabre (the song) when you have 3 discs worth of space is a sin. 

I mean, really, a majority of this thing is the result of fans voting. There isn’t much to angry at the band about. Besides, let’s not act like we all haven’t made our own best of albums already. 

This is such a good idea. 

Tbh, I would have preferred 2 discs of 'shot in one take' songs rather than this bloated 3-disc package of remasters and virtually pointless remakes. All they'd have to do is get all their live crap in a room and just play the songs through (perhaps over a few days so they stay fresh). That would be the best celebration of their material, as it would represent the culmination of the band living and breathing the songs over 20 years. They could even have set up a few cameras in the room and filmed the entire performance for an easy Blu-Ray/DVD that we'd actually enjoy. Check out Chain Repulsion (Shot In One Take) and imagine if they did something similar with stuff from VULGAR, Kisou, MACABRE, etc.
 
No idea what they were thinking with this album. Should've been called POS rather than VOS.

If you guys could do over the first 7 songs of disc 3, what would you pick? I'd go for
 
Remastered album versions of
-Zakuro
-Macabre
-Mr Newsman 
-Obscure
-Grief
-Dreambox
 
And that amazing version of Mazohyst above! 

Thanking you

Just keep the 1st two disks and the last track from the third and all your bases should be covered just in case.

I hate to remind y'all but fans voted for everything but the remakes so technically that's all DEG themselves can be blamed for.

Tell me about it. The fact that they missed all of those but heavily represented the shittier remakes is beyond me. Unless the Obscure remake is there to highlight a low point in the band's career? We are trawling through their history after all
 
Skipping Macabre (the song) when you have 3 discs worth of space is a sin. 

Macabre is grossly underrepresented on this thing. I know ain’t afraid to die is basically a Macabre track, but having that and Taiyou no Ao (one after the other at that) is ballad overkill. 

Wait a minute...I've only just realised that GRIEF is missing. What the flip?! 

I'm digging how much harder CD 2 is in general. Dead Tree sounds so much fuller, especially with that audible bassline! 

Die uses three guitars just to play Macabre. He don’t give no fucks. 

Guess we may never find out whether the next album will remain as heavy or become heavier than ARCHE or not.
 
Utafumi might be as well an ARCHE leftover so we need another single ASAP.
 
Enough with these remakes.

This is DAMN tasty 

I'm digging how much harder CD 2 is in general. Dead Tree sounds so much fuller, especially with that audible bassline! 

They really should just have done a complete remaster of Withering to death. The contrast is quite stark because of the terrible muddy production the original has. Some of the tracks, such as the GAUZE ones, I can't notice any quality improvement whatsoever on. 
 
 

Damn. Remastered Child Prey goes HARD. 

I almost forgot how much I love the kiri to mayu remake, tbh. I could listen to Kaoru improvise chugging riffs on a 7 string guitar for hours. Years ago, when they remade Zan, I said the one remake I wanted was Kiri to Mayu, and they didn't disappoint.
 
And I almost forgot how awful Kyo's voice is on I'll. I mean, it's evident from the very beginning Kyo wasn't the best at staying in key. People thought the IIID Empire remake was bad, and it is; but it's nothing compared to I'll.

The only remasters on VOS that sound significantly different are -I'll-, the tracks from VULGAR, Withering to death., and UROBOROS (kind of, they sound much better than the 2012 remasters.). I really wish they'd have just remastered all of VULGAR and Withering to death.
 
I'm not digging the new Beautiful Dirt or THE IIID EMPIRE. I would have been just happy with remasters of those two. And speaking of re-recordings, including the DSS/UNRAVELING-era re-recordings was offensive, especially OBSCURE. But I still love the new 腐海!

awful new Obscure (2)

There were no surprises for me after hearing the previews, and adding to the feeling of predictability the same problems they've had for a while now still persist. To start off with the negative: the covers they've had for this and the DVD's have been corny & awful, and it's symptomatic of the string of poor stylistic decisions that plague 'lot of the stuff they do now. When I heard that electronic effect in the beginning of Fukai I had a hard time believing this is a band with +20 years of experience with all the professionals of the business at their disposal that I'm listening to: because it's fucking stupid and adds absolutely nothing but terrible awkwardness, like a bird flying over a scenery only to hit the glass wall of a skyscraper and fall to its death with a quiet thump. It's, much like the covers, a lot of aesthetic pomp on the surface level that when you scratch it, it only reveals more surface or just sieves through your hands and shatters to pieces entirely. 
 
With that I suppose the best thing about this is that they didn't do anything drastic. These sound like they were trying to create that spontaneous and chaotic live, one-shot feeling with a super loud studio production backing it, and I still kind of appreciate the idea and I would have loved to hear a version like this of IIID EMPIRE... just not this one. This is one of those times when I love what Kyo is doing in theory, but not in practice, and had they done a few things different I'd fuck with it; and apropos of which I think Fukai works quite well and it almost sounds like it could've fit on Arche, and this largely comes down to the choice of sounds they decide to take. Spank and sperg or spark and spark makes a difference, as does adding electronic flourishes and noodling mini-solos betwixt an old song of theirs. Will it replace the old version? No, but I'll play them side-by-side if I'm in the mood for it.
 
It does also feel like the days of remakes like Tsumi to Kisei are over, and they'll settle for an updated sound that's either more live adaptable or they feel like putting out a studio version of the live track. Either way I don't care what they do, since the only way it'll impact my life is if they do their live sets dirty like with insisting on playing the awful new Obscure instead of the old one. 
 
 

Best part of Beautiful Dirt was Kyo’s HA HA at the end and he doesn’t even do that in the new one. 
 
Best parts of new IIID Empire: that thing Toshiya does in the middle break, the weird skronky thing Kaoru does around 2:24. 
 
Absolute worst thing about new IIID Empire: Kyo spankin’ and spankin’, also GOOGLY EYE GOOGLY EYE GOOGLE EYE
 
 

OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU WERE NOT JOKING BITCH