enyx

凛として時雨 - mib126

Closer for their third full-length 'just A moment'. One of sigure's best songs in my personal opinion. It starts off as a rather subdued track that builds up slowly before completely exploding into one of their most intense tracks in the second half. Undoubtedly one of their finest moments to date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bwudsetJDU

 

THE NOVEMBERS - GIFT

Closer for their third mini-album 'GIFT'. Well, I did say in my description of Moiré in the best album openers thread that I consider GIFT's title track closer to be at least on par with its terrific opener, so I pretty much have to include this here. I almost consider them to be two halves of the same song, at least in terms of their overall feel. In particular, I really find the final few minutes of this song to be absolutely beautiful.

 

Opeth - Faith In Others

Closer for their eleventh full-length 'Pale Communion'. I feel a little weird including this considering that the album it's from only came out last month, but I pretty much immediately identified this as the best closing track that the band has ever done. Time will tell whether I'll truly consider it to be one of the best album closers as the months and years go by, but it's certainly given me a fantastic first impression. Just a quick note, this Youtube version seems to have the first 10-15 seconds missing, but it's basicaly just an extended fade-in so you're not missing too much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Zbuh6nWGs

Any other interesting instrumental outfits worth a mention?

Doesn't necessarily need to be post-rock for that matter.

 

I recently stumbled across a band called How to count one to ten. I'm not sure if they're already known on here or not (I assume they probably are) but if you haven't checked them out yet then I'd say they're definitely worth a listen. They have a new album out next month too I believe.

I have to agree with 'sink', 'VINUSHKA', 'audience KILLER LOOP', 'Infection', and 'close, down, back to'. All of those are really solid openers that I probably would have posted myself were they not already posted.

 

THE NOVEMBERS - Moiré

Opener for their third mini-album 'GIFT'. I adore everything about this song as an opening. It starts off calm and rather dreamlike, and then just builds and builds in terms of grandeur over its 8 minute runtime. Unfortunately I don't think the rest of the mini quite hits the same level of quality with the exception of the closing title track, but still, that doesn't take anything away from this fantastic song.

 

Spangle call Lilli line - mai

Opener for their sixth full-length 'PURPLE'. Pretty much from the instant this song starts, you get a feeling for what Spangle call Lilli line is all about. This song perfectly encapsulates almost everything that 'PURPLE' goes on to present later in the album.

 

Dir en grey -  鬼眼 -kigan-

Opener for their third full-length '鬼葬'. Yes, I know Dir en grey have already been mentioned twice in this thread, but I find this track often gets overlooked despite being my personal favourite opener of theirs. It manages to be atmospheric, calm, energetic, and batshit insane all at the same time.

I was expecting worse based on the sample. It's not my favourite Miyavi song but it's not particularly bad either. It's just... average.

 

Also I can't help but find the contradictory paradox of complaining about his 'lack of progression' while simultaneously comparing it negatively to his previous works (thus indicating a clear, albeit unfavourable, progression of some kind) to be rather amusing.

Exquisite.

downy uploaded a PV for 猿の手柄 (from their first album) onto their Youtube channel today. I could be wrong, but I believe this is a completely new PV rather than a simple re-upload. Both their first and second albums were recently re-released so I'm guessing that's the reason.

 

Shinkiro (short ver.) radio rip here.

 

I am so ready for this album.

Sorry for the double post but I think it's worth bumping the thread for.

 

Sigure's YT channel uploaded a 2min PV sample for Fantastic Magic and promptly blocked it. However there's a re-upload floating around on tumblr for those that are interested. Personally I quite like it, moreso than both contrast and unravel.

Interesting. I've only heard two tracks in full thus far (EverythingChanges and 光の加減で話した) and neither of them gave me a particularly negative impression, but perhaps that'll change when I hear the full release.

Being a fan of both jazz/club-jazz and instrumental rock, I wanted to like this band much more than I do. They have a great lineup, but the music they've cranked out has been hit and miss for me - mostly miss unfortunately. Great musicians, but lackluster songwriting imo.

Hmm, fair enough. I'm a complete newbie to the jazz scene so I don't have much to compare them to.

 

Anyway, here's another band I checked out recently. Nothing revolutionary, but still a nice listen.

 

Finally, has anyone listened to 宇宙コンビニ's new mini? I haven't bought it yet because I'm waiting to see if they release it internationally on iTunes like they did with their first mini, but I've heard some tracks floating around online and it sounds at least as good as their first.

Anyone listened to fox capture plan before? I just found out about them and I'm really digging what I'm hearing so far.

 

 

Anyone wanna bet on how many times the word 'plastic' will appear in the lyrics?

Is it bad that I was wondering the exact same thing? I'm going to say 3 songs

 

Dramatic Slow motion is the most repeatable TK's song for me, I hope the album ver is better!

I'm a little interested as to why he chose to rerecord Dramatic Slow Motion only. Hopefully it's not just a slight change in production but something more notable.

Great find Perez! I didn't realise that YUCHI had composed some of the tracks, but I'm happy to see that he did. I also didn't think that Kyo's compositional role was as limited as that, I mean it was pretty obvious that UTA & Takumi had the largest compositional influence, but I thought that Kyo would have been involved in more tracks overall. In particular, I thought that he'd have had more of an input on tracks like aftermath and Uyuu no Sora (the latter of which is basically a studio version of an Inward Scream). 

 

Overall I'm glad to see that this band is really more of a group project rather than being completely dominated by one driving force. I think the album benefits from having 4 different composers all sharing a decent amount of influence, it helps to keep things fresh and interesting throughout. It's a shame that Mika didn't seem to contribute much, though, but there's always that one member that just tends to stick to their own instrumental role. 

 

Vo. 京 (DIR EN GREY)

Gt. 匠 (ex. Rentrer en Soi)

Gt. UTA (ex. 9GOATS BLACK OUT)

Gt. YUCHI (kannivalism)

Dr. 未架 (ex. Rentrer en Soi)

 

sukekiyo’s formation, debut album, and recent live shows have all generated a lot of discussion lately. As such, I thought it would make sense to finally give the band its own thread here in the artists forum, rather than having discussions split across the IMMORTALIS news thread, IMMORTALIS review thread, and Dir en grey artist thread. Obviously new announcements and reviews of releases should still be done in their respective forums, but all of the other stuff can go here instead of derailing those threads.

 

Some questions and points of discussion to get the ball rolling

• How do you feel about sukekiyo as a whole? Are you a fan of the band? Do you think it’s being overhyped? 
• What do you think of their recent live performances having a specific dress code? Does it suit the atmosphere of their music more or does it turn you off?
• Are the comparisons between sukekiyo and DIR EN GREY inevitable or justified? Do you think the desire to compare the two will die down once the novelty of 京 being one of the members wears off?
• To what extent do you consider sukekiyo to be 京’s ‘solo project’? Is it fair to use such a term when it appears that the other members also seem to have considerable influence on the band's music?
• What would you like to see from the band in the future? Do you expect it to be a full time project? 

Sorry for the double post, but here's a preview of the title track:

 

 

Unfortunately it seems every bit as generic as sfp's anime songs were. Hopefully the b-sides are better.

Now with this development with la la larks, I've been wondering if it wasn't the other way around, with Yumi being the only one wanting to do these anime songs. The keyboardist went on to join LAGITAGIDA after all.

 

I'm inclined to agree with this theory as well. It's further supported by the fact that Hasuo (key.) seemed to stop contributing creatively after they went major. I know that composer credits don't always tell the full story, but it's worth noting that he was specifically credited on 5 of the 8 songs on air feel, color swim, yet on amp-reflection and Prog-Roid together he was only credited on a total of 2 out of 24 songs  (line and パーセンテージ) . school food punishment's later discography seemed to be almost entirely dominated by the Yumi-Ryou partnership (despite the latter not actually being in the band), so it's logical to assume that la la larks will follow on from that sort of sound, especially now that both of them are officially in the band this time.

 

On one hand it's a shame but on the other it could be a good thing. I have a soft spot for pre-major-label sfp but I do like their later music as well and this band/environment seems more suited to that style than a seemingly somewhat dysfunctional sfp. I just hope these anime songs don't become as repetitive as songs like Future Nova, RPG, etc were.

Never listened to SATORI before, but I really enjoyed that track. I'll be sure to check out more of their stuff.

 

For those that like HaKU, they recently released a new PV out of nowhere:

 

As a follow up to my previous post, la la larks' crowdfunding project for their CD was successful. I'm still not entirely sure if it's going to be a single, mini-album or full-length, but there's a demo for the title track up if anyone's interested:

I really was not prepared for how good that sounded, wow.

Seems that la la larks are using crowdfunding to support an official CD release. My Japanese isn't good enough to figure out all of the details, but it seems that the CD's name is supposed to be 「28時」 and that there are 39 days left to support the project. I'm scared to post a news thread for it because like I said before my Japanese is kind of crappy so I'm not certain on anything; anyone with good understanding of Japanese care to shed any more light on this? 

 

And to stop this from being completely off-topic since that was technically a news update, here's a la la larks X UNCHAIN collab I found floating around on Youtube for you all to admire: http://youtu.be/fXWoXxwl4-c

Here's some more HaKU for you lovely people. I'm digging it.

 

I've made two pretty big discoveries this year, both were artists that I knew about previously but didn't truly appreciate until the early portion of this year. Both have since gone on to become two of my favourite artists.

 

school food punishment - Oh my god I adore this band. Aside from the generic anime opening/ending tracks that started to clog up their later releases, everything else they released was stellar. This is the first band I've truly fallen in love with AFTER they disbanded. Normally I find bands while they're still active so getting into one that had already broken up was uncharted territory for me. Fortunately la la larks exists and appears to be moving in the same direction as sfp's indie music, if only Hasuo was involved somehow...

 

(TK from) 凛として時雨 - Technically two different artists but I consider 時雨 and TK's solo material to be two halves of the same beast, with 時雨 focusing mainly on the more aggressive stuff and TK's solo work focusing more on the experimental side. Funnily enough, whereas I consider sfp's material to have gone slightly downhill after signing with a major label (though still putting out some great stuff), 時雨's just seemed to get better; just A moment, still a Sigure virgin?, flowering and i'mperfect are all exceptionally strong albums, each with their own slightly different direction and focus.

This thread needs reviving, so here's a band I discovered about 2 weeks ago called the perfect sports. They're basically an instrumental mathrock band in the same vein as toe. So far they've only released a few tracks and they're all freely available for download on their SoundCloud. I recommend giving a listen to Sengawa & known as worthless at least, but all of them are pretty good.

There hasn’t been anywhere enough time to properly digest this album, so consider this more of a “first-impressions” than a definitive review.

 

Going into this album my faith in the GazettE was pretty much the lowest point it had ever been at. I got in to them shortly after DIM’s release and greatly enjoyed not just that album, but their previous material as well. TOXIC and DIVISION, however, both disappointed me (especially the latter). FADELESS didn’t do much to convince me that this album was going to be any different, but I’m delighted to say that I’m pleasantly surprised by BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY, though it does share some of their previous two releases’ low points.

 

MALFORMED BOX - Good

The obligatory GazeStep intro. This one sounds substantially better than [XI] & INFUSE INTO in my opinion.  I guess there’s not much else I can say beyond that since it’s just an SE, so on to the next track.

 

INSIDE BEAST - Good

I really don’t want to like this track… but I just can’t help it. Although I don’t mind electronic music in general, I never felt that the GazettE were very successful when incorporating it into their own music. I felt that this was particularly noticeable in the English-titled half of DIVISION, most of those tracks just sounded like very formulaic GazettE tracks with some random WUBWUBWUB thrown over the top to try to mask how dull they were. INSIDE BEAST, however, seems to actually use the electronic elements as a key component of the song, and that’s why it succeeds where previous attempts failed. It’s also ridiculously catchy, particularly the chorus. This is probably going to be my ‘guilty pleasure’ of the album.

 

UNTIL IT BURNS OUT - Poor

This song is a complete waste of time and very characteristic of what dragged down DIVISION & TOXIC. It feels like the bare-minimum of a GazettE song, it does nothing particularly interesting and just feels like it’s there for the sake of having another song on the album *yawn*.

 

DEVOURING ONE ANOTHER - Good

Quite like this track. It definitely gives off a Marilyn Manson vibe which I’ve seen a few other people mention and personally I dig it. Ruki’s screams are incredibly satisfying on this song and generally speaking it’s just an enjoyable heavy track.

 

FADELESS - Poor

Didn't really care for this when it came out and I still don’t care for it now. I get the fact that it’s sort of a throwback to their YEEHAW GAZERAWWK days but all that accomplishes is highlighting how dull their instrumentation is at times compared to those days.

 

REDO - Awesome

For some reason I just really dig this track. It’s chill, relaxing and quite different from their other ballads over the last few years. Quite like the guitar lines in this track too, they aren’t exceptional but they’re good enough to keep the song interesting throughout. If I had to think of a criticism for this song, it’s that I wish it was longer.

 

LAST HEAVEN - Awesome

A lot of people have been singing this song’s praises and I have to agree with them, this is easily Ruki’s best composition in the SONY era. The highlight has to be that guitar solo towards the end, fantastic stuff.

 

LOSS - Undecided

I don’t know what to make of this song, on one hand I like many of the individual sections that it has but on the other hand I find it really disjointed when they’re all thrown together into the same song. It feels like the band tried to incorporate too many ideas and it just ends up feeling enjoyable yet awkward and directionless. Maybe I just need more time to digest it.

 

THE STUPID TINY INSECT - Good

What happens when you fuse VENOMOUS SPIDER’S WEB, SLUDGY CULT & ヘドロ together into one song? You get THE STUPID TINY INSECT. Somehow this track feels more complete than the aforementioned three in my opinion, it’s not revolutionary but it’s certainly enjoyable.

 

IN BLOSSOM - Awesome

This track is ridiculously awesome! Well, it’s awesome once that awkward, unnecessarily-trying-too-hard-to-be-heavy, intro is done with. Once the song properly gets going, however, it just kicks ass all the way until the end. Fantastic stuff.

 

鴉 - Awesome

Another ridiculously awesome track. I love the energy and its “in your face” nature. This just sounds like one of those songs that the band had a lot of fun with and you can feel that when you listen to it. In that sense it kind of reminds me of their indie days; it’s scrappy and just fun as hell.

 

黒く澄んだ空と残骸と片翅 - Undecided

I've had a different impression of this song each time I've listened to it. On one hand it’s an energetic heavy track, on the other hand it feels kind of generic and formulaic. I guess this is another one I’ll have to let sink in before I can make my mind up.

 

TO DAZZLING DARKNESS - Poor

This is the most disappointing song on the album in terms of what I expected after hearing the previews. I already knew that I didn’t care for FADELESS and UNTIL IT BURNS OUT’s preview didn’t do much to make me interested in the song but I was expecting more from TO DAZZLING DARKNESS. It starts out quite good, it’s atmospheric and dark, but then it just seems to aimlessly meander around and never really develops into anything.

 

CODA - Good

A good closing track, very atmospheric build up before it finally starts to break out about half way through the song. Probably my favourite closing track since DIM SCENE.

 

Conclusion

BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY is a definite step up from the GazettE’s previous two albums, though admittedly that isn’t saying much on its own. My big issue with TOXIC & DIVISION was how formulaic many of the songs sounded, they were effectively the bare-minimum requirements of whatever GazettE-song-archetype they were going for. BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY’s tracks feel like they have a lot more soul put into them aside from the occasional let down here & there. It might not reach the heights of DIM or NIL, but it’s definitely the most consistent album they’ve put out in the SONY era so far. I’d rank it below DIM & NIL but well above TOXIC & DIVISION, kind of in the middle ground that I also consider DISORDER & STACKED RUBBISH to be in.

Sounds noticeably better than their previous two albums, even though it shares a similar style in certain previews. To be honest I never had an issue with the style they were going for on TOXIC or DIVISION, I just never thought that they achieved it particularly well. DIVISION in particular just felt like a bunch of songs that were written in the space of 5 minutes with the occasional flash of quality scattered sporadically throughout (Kagefumi's solo, Kago no Sanagi's first verse, etc). These previews make BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY sound more consistent in terms of the quality, though there are one or two tracks that sound like they were quickly thrown together to pad the album out.

 

Looking forward to DEVOURING ONE ANOTHER, LOSS, 鴉, TO DAZZLING DARKNESS & CODA.

Wow, I totally forgot to mention HaKU in my post. Although they don't write solos as frequently as a lot of other bands, when they do it always fits the song very well. Examples of some particularly good ones include 

,  , vanitas, and selfish (cant find any YT links for the last two).

 

All of those songs are really good that you linked, unfortunately, I have to disagree with the statement you made on The GazettE. I feel that most of the time, they make their solos sound more than just a shred fest or something that sounds similar to the chorus at high speed where it just demonstrates their skills in speed and not flair. They have countless songs with amazing solos such as Bathroom, Cassis, Reila, CALM ENVY, DIM SCENE, DISTRESS AND COMA,  Guren, PLEDGE, REGRET, Kago no Sanagi, Shiroki Yuu Utsu, and so on. Then again, they also have their solos which seem to be their just to have one (traditional VK style): DERANGEMENT, IN THE MIDDLE OF CHAOS, Red, CLEVER MONKEY, 

Ironically that's exactly what I mean, they have the ability to write some fantastic ones (some of the ones that you mentioned that I also like a lot are Bathroom, Calm Envy, Shiroki Yuu Utsu, Pledge and ironically Clever Monkey even though you put that in the bad list), but then they have a lot of solos that just seem to be there purely for the sake of having a solo, even if it completely derails the song. Personally I actually consider Kago no Sanagi's solo to be really unnecessary. 

 

To be honest though I think a lot of bands have this problem, just because you can write a guitar solo doesn't mean you always should. Even Dir en grey, despite everything positive I said about them in my previous post, seem to have forgotten this occasionally, Unraveling being a recent example.