Shmilly

I'd like to ask you to use our current rating system that we've implemented here: http://monochrome-heaven.com/index.php?/topic/19216-new-monochrome-heaven-official-review-rankings-guide/

 

I've noticed that less and less people are using it at the moment, but we put it as an obligation because it gives a better overall view of a review than number/10, because for one a 7 might seem "very good" while another would deem a 7 as "average".

 

Huh, I never noticed we had an official ranking system. No problem.

Props to DaizyStripper for releasing a 'special price version' of their latest album that doesn't discount any tracks. However, for me this album falls into the trap of being held up by singles and not new material. It's by no means a particularly weak release, just not their finest work. We were already served the STARGAZER through Derringer singles, and then less than a month ago G.Z.S.K.K - for me, that was a pretty pointless single since it's the lead track on this album anyway and there were no B-sides. But I digress.

 

TRAGUS is a solid release, if predictable. With six of the tracks being the previous singles, and two instrumentals, that leaves us with just six new ones... which unfortunately, are rather forgettable. I'm not condemning the album for being a single compilation (look at, as just one example, abingdon boys school's first album, which was fantastic). But for me, this time Daizy have mostly filled out this one. Let's take a look at the tracks individually.

 

01 - EMBLEM of JAIL - Instrumental opening, not much to say here.

02 - G.Z.S.K.K - Ridiculous title and also pretty repetitive, luckily the chorus is damn catchy so that helps it a lot.

03 - キューソネコカミ - Standard Daizy fare here, little bit of autotune on the vocals and then a more upbeat chorus. It just doesn't do anything to stand out from their previous work.

04 - STARGAZER - Perhaps my favourite of their endless single release campaign. Feels like it should have been on their previous album AIR.

05 - QUALTIER LATIN - At least they're trying to branch out a bit here. DaizyStripper have been known to experiment with jazz before, but now they're going for a kind of waltz style. Unfortunately it just feels a bit out of place and is regrettably forgettable for it.

06 - 理想 - I imagine this would be pretty fun live. One of their more fast-paced, chaotic style songs, with some prominent electronic elements. Nothing groundbreaking but pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

07 - MOONLIGHT of JAIL - Soothing piano interlude. Unfortunately it's a complete rip-off of Erik Satie's Gymnopedie no.1, but it does give the album a nice breather before the ballad-y section to come.

08 - HELLO, again - A soft and quite beautiful ballad. The PV for this one tells a nice story, from what I remember.

09 - MISSING - Another single, pretty standard Daizy style but that doesn't make it any less pleasing to listen to.

10 - PRIDE - This time they're shaking it up with some almost rap-like fast spoken vocals, which is interesting to say the least.

11 - 真面目complex - Welcome back electronic Daizy. This is quite a fun track all things considered.

12 - 嘘と陽炎 - Here's the jazz I was talking about. I don't think it's the best they've done with this genre but it's still decent. (If you want JazzyStripper check out リリカルナイト).

13 - GIRL HUNT - For a song with such an interesting title, I was expecting something a little... different. To be honest I'm not really sure where this one is going, it has such a mish-mash of elements that I struggled to really get it.

14 - Derringer - Last song, last single. Has a kind of upbeat ballad feel to it that marks it as a very Daizy song. Rounds off the album pretty well. I feel like this could also have been from AIR.

 

One thing I should add as a personal note is that a few months ago I picked up a Taiwan-only release from DaizyStripper called 10 COLORS, which is a 10-track album consisting of the STARGAZER through Derringer singles, their B-sides, and respective PVs. So this has a large impact on how unimpressed I am with TRAGUS. Replace the new tracks with the single B-sides and it's basically the same, and a couple of those would have done better than the new material unfortunately.

 

Overall a decent release but not exceptional. I'm not really one for rating albums, but I'll give it a solid . It's a shame most of that comes from stuff we've heard before.

I've never been a super MUCC fan, but I really liked Kyutai and Shion was pretty good too. After Kyutai I kind of lost interest like many people, but I thought I'd give this new album a try after seeing a clip from the Ender Ender PV on TV a few weeks ago. I have to say in my absence from MUCC's releases I was pleased to hear the heavier sound back on a few tracks. It starts off pretty strong, Ender Ender is too catchy not to like and the opening title track has some interesting things going on. There were some good tracks in there but so far I only listened to it through once, on the train, so I don't know any of them by name yet. Not their best album but for me it's at least worth a listen. Also I'm a little amused(?) that no less than 3 of the songs seem to use "Hello" in the chorus (although on second thought one of them could have been the single 'Halo' instead since I didn't listen to that before the album).

 

Not going to give it a real score since as I said I've only listened to it once, but it's by no means a distaster. Maybe I'll pick it up if I see it pre-owned somewhere in the next couple of months. Overshadowed for me this week by Cardia's new single.

Sounds interesting, mostly because I was wondering what the ex-CR members were doing. It's only keita this time but hey, I heard some of them were rounded up by Dual Core after the disband. Also didn't know he played bass.

Indeed. And looking at how NB's releases are priced, they're not very considerate LOL. They should certainly try to make their music more affordable if they're concerned about overseas fans so much.

 

(I looked on itunes US, and their full-length album is priced higher than the new lana del rey album...granted, it's only a dollar more, but....really???)

 

Not trying to defend Nokubura's pricing or anything, but it's not really far from the norm in the VK scene. Their DVD was a little on the expensive side, but other than that I think it's average.

 

And as for the iTunes thing, don't forget their album is 15 tracks long, that probably has a small impact on the price.

I will add personal bias on top of their ingrained mediocrity, and this is where I will use the right to have my own opinion as a part of the argument. 

 

I don't have a problem with your opinion, I'm just saying that it's not really a valid point to compare who is influenced by who and what one does or doesn't like when it comes to which bands 'deserve' recognition or popularity. And as rsasai said illegal downloading is illegal regardless of whose music you're not paying for, it doesn't matter if they're a 'good' band or not. NB have every right to uphold the copyright of their intellectual and artistic property, even if you think it's just a copycat of a different band.

 

And your point about originality is moot when, as you say, take away the visual aspect and NB are just a metalcore band much like any other in that particular subgenre. Of course bands are influenced by one another, it would be impossible for a group of musicians who had never listened to music to meet up and start a new genre. That doesn't make them any less original or worthy of support, just that they have chosen the style they choose to identify with.

 

I'm not trying to start any kind of argument, I just struggle to see how this kind of judgement and bias has any relevance to the discussion at hand. There's no reason why people can't enjoy the music they like without tearing into other groups for being unoriginal or mediocre.

Brief comment about foreign fans: the ratio of us gaijin at NB's Shinjuku BLAZE oneman last week seemed to me higher than usual. One of my friends even got into the meet and greet session for drawing a signed cheki. Those guys definitely know they have the beginnings of popularity overseas. Hell, as someone mentioned before about bands being as 'tech savvy' as us, if Masa is smart enough to tweet about piracy he already knows that these download links are on foreign sites and being downloaded outside of Japan. The interest is there.

 

And I don't want to start anything with nekkichi but that comment a few posts back about NB being mediocre even within the VK scene is just a bit of a dick point. Everyone is entitled to their own taste in music and if there's one thing I truly hate about fans it's their unfailing ability to trash talk anyone they don't listen to themselves. Seriously, I don't know why more people can't just enjoy the music they like and stop giving a damn what everyone else does. It's great when we can share enthusiasm about the ones we like, or even introduce someone to a new favourite, but there's no need to enter an argument about illegal downloading in relation to a band and say it's irrelevant because they're not even good. It's called taste, get over it.

 

Edit: Also the whole comparing bands to other bands thing. If people haven't listened to Suicide Silence, BMTH, before NB, why should they have any reason to think they are a 'copycat' band or imitating their style? Looking at VK being primarily a Japanese genre, I get that lots of Japanese listen to music from overseas, but that's no reason to imagine a VK fan listens to loads of Western metal too. I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese visual fans who listen almost entirely to VK and only find out about new bands through the VK scene. 

 

As for rsasai's abridged thesis, I can see a lot of good points in there. And since we are talking about VK in particular, it's fair to discuss the Japanese market. In Japan at least, I think the whole in-store bonus scheme actually does a lot of good. It invites fans to actually go to a brick-and-mortar store and buy a new release, and even get a little comment DVD (or even something like live or off shot footage). There's so many little indie stores in VK - Like an Edison, Jishuban Club, Little Hearts - that distributing extra goodies between them means the kind of fans in VK will go out of their way to get the member they like, or the best bonus, even buying more than one copy. Then there's in store events, which allow fans to actually talk to the bands they love and share their enthusiasm in person, and for anyone else stumbling into the store that's more word of mouth. 'Did you see that crazy bijuaru band in Tower Records yesterday? I think they were called Nocturnal Bloodlust or something.'

I'd love to see a collaboration between Leda and Meku, though I don't know exactly what would happen when they argue over who gets to write the songs. xD

Yeah I love these guys too. I see the similarities to DELUHI, but for me GALEYD are more melodic metal than core (and let's be honest, DELUHI took it much heavier). The vocal style is also completely different. In this case 'indefinite hiatus' is definitely the same as 'disbanded' though - their website is gone, they lost their composer and guitarist, and Nikky is now officially with ALSDEAD. It's a shame we'll probably never hear from them again, since the overall quality of their songs was great. It got a bit weak towards the end (as I guess Meku took less control over the composition) - they suffered a little from 'song title is chorus' syndrome. Still, really energetic and one of just a handful of bands I followed from the very start to the very end.

A kind of side point that I think applies mostly to the visual kei scene is live-distributed singles and DVDs. Not only are they ridiculously limited to begin with, but not just foreign fans but even domestic ones probably have no chance to ever hear/see them. If bands are so worried about losing money to piracy, why do they invest the time, effort and money to produce a limited run of a new song and then give it away free to a handful of fans who go to one concert, never to be seen again? I'm frustrated to no end by this practice. Case in point, I missed Signal's last live and I've been searching for the single Crossing fate ever since. It doesn't seem to exist in the used market or on auction at all. This is also relevant to NB because recently they distributed Triangle Carnage and it even shows up on their site's discography page. "We don't want you to pirate our music, but by the way here's a song you can't buy and you will never know what it sounds like".

Obviously this is an issue much larger than NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST, but it does get the ball rolling again when an actual musician or group acts on it. In NB's case, I'm actually a bit confused about their concerns, because although they're starting to reach that level of popularity in the indie scene where people clamour for their releases it's not like they're not shifting copies. I had to go into two VK CD stores yesterday (the day of release) to buy their new single because in the first one it was already sold out. I think I may have grabbed the last copy from the second too because there were no more on the shelves, although I guess there could have been some in storage since they were still clearing up after an instore event. That said, I also bought a ticket for their one man next weekend which has yet to sell out (and probably won't). Now I don't know whether NB make more money from their CDs than their lives (there's a strong used market in Japan with stores like Closet Child and Puresound, and of course the auction sites). But in today's reality the way most foreign bands (especially indies) gain recognition overseas is by someone on the internet saying, 'hey this band is awesome, check them out' and people sharing downloads. It's great to see more bands these days like NB use an official YouTube account to advertise their music and PVs, but people still need to know about them to watch them. It's a tricky issue, but as people have already stated suing your fans seems like it can only do more harm than good at this point. I'm looking forward to see if NB have any announcements to make at Shinjuku BLAZE.

Great news, their other two singles are awesome.

Judging by the 'whole new world' part I'm expecting at the very least a Black 2/ White 2 style update to the Hoenn region. Although since the references in X & Y also mention a different region, what if this actually turns out to be the follow up to those too?

 

Also Mega Groudon and Kyogre confirmed.

Social game? not really my cup of tea, but what exactly do you do in this game?

 

At its core it's a fairly simple puzzle game where you switch coloured orbs to make sets of three or more - the colour responds to the type of the monsters in your team, and so deleting the same colour deals damage to your enemies. The complexity comes in when every orb you move past switches place, so you can line up multiple matches on one turn. Furthermore, a set of 5 in any configuration causes all opponents to take damage of that colour. And of course, each monster has some kind of ability that takes so many turns to charge, and many also have a leader skill, which means selecting your lineup (and which friend's monster to borrow, since you also gain the benefit of their leader skill).

 

Then there's a Pokemon like aspect where you can level up (and also skill up, thus taking less turns to charge) your monsters, and many of them can be evolved once they hit max level - providing you have the right materials to expend, which are rarer monsters. Add to this the cycle of weekday dungeons, random time special dungeons, a lengthy campaign of regular ones and also a high score table for the elite, and you have a huge and deep game which you can play entirely for free.

 

Oh, and there's an egg machine each for points accumulated using friends' monsters, and one for the premium currency (which is given to you regularly for free anyway) which can net you some rare but random goodies.

 

Do I sound too much like a maniac yet?

Me too! Ridiculously addicted to it right now. Still a little annoyed that the ultimate evo I need on my English version, is only available in the Japanese so far, while in my Japanese version, I need the materials from the English one... -sigh-. Please add some kind of trading feature, Gungho.

These covers are pretty awesome. Although I think if the GazettE disbanded it would put most of them out of the music scene, not see them split up into different directions. Being one of the most long lasting globally recognised and successful visual kei bands is a tough act to follow.

The film's a little complicated, but the basic premise is this:

 

A teacher's daughter is found dead in the school swimming pool, and it turns out she was murdered by two of her students. Since they're too young to take any responsibility at court, she exacts revenge by injecting their milk with HIV-positive blood from her husband.

 

It's called 'kokuhaku' (confessions) because the film centres around explaining the circumstances leading up to the event through the confessions of the main characters.

The file is too big to be downloaded as a free member, it clearly states you need to go premium.

Came in expecting a beastly album with DIV, UNiTE., Giru, Alsdead, D.I.D., MUCC, Ken, etc... lol.

But it is very cool that they are showcasing less known artists and building the industry as usual. I very much look forward to this.

 

But as the title says, West Japan. Tokyo is in the east, that's why most of the successful bands are based there.

On the furigana discussion, that's the band's intention I think. Their first album title when just listening sounds like 'demon lizard', but the way it's written is 'demon and shadow'. You can tell it's a play on the sound because the album cover features a lizard.

These guys are busy lately. Good news though, if it's a quality album next week I'll be excited for these too.

1: Do you buy multiple versions of releases, or buy at all? (Judgement-Free-Zone)

 

I buy new and old releases all the time, but usually only one version. Since I'm a music person first and foremost, I tend to choose the edition with the bonus track(s) where available. I only have a couple of items in more than one version, and that's because I found an alternate super cheap while in Japan.

 

2: Do you collect cheki or other non-music related items from bands?

 

Nope, this is what makes me a collector more than a fan. My interest in buying items is purely down to the discography. Live-dist and store exclusive CD/DVDs are the crown of my collection. I'm also a fan of lossless so the more I can get hold of, the better.

 

3: Follow them on Ameblo, Twitter?

 

No, I don't have either of those. Occasionally I look through a band member's Ameblog, though usually for high-res album art or live setlists rather than much interest in their personal life. I have a bit of a thing for making playlists out of one-man setlists, particularly tour finals.

 

4: Would you follow them on the street?

 

I want to say no, since I'm definitely not that kind of fan, but if I could be certain it was someone from one of my favourite bands or a musician or vocalist in the scene that I really respect, I would of course try to approach them for a photo or something.

 

5: Dig through their trash? (Judgment-Free-Zone)

 

Nope, no interest there. Not really sure what people would aim to find there. I mean, it's unlikely they'd throw out something valuable like clothing or accessories in their regular trash. Especially in Japan, where it's divided into burnable and non-burnable, and that's it.

 

6: Does Visual Kei or other forms of your musical taste influence your style or personal life?

 

Absolutely, music is such an important part of my life. I have some distinctly visual kei clothing, which I wear most to concerts and the like where I'll be with the crowd, but for the most part I like a more toned-down style - think DELUHI toward the end. That said, clothes are super expensive and with my music collector side I don't often get to buy a lot of them.

 

7: Desire to move or visit Japan influenced by music?

 

Hahahahaha. This message brought to you from Hino, Tokyo. Welcome to the summary of the last few years of my life.

 

8: Do you read dirt-sheets of bands, like rumours, gossip, etc...?

 

Only if it crops up on one of the blogs or forums like this site that I frequent. Like I said before, I have little interest in the band members' personal lives - I don't subscribe to celebrity culture and I hate the way 'famous' peoples' lives are so exposed to the media. It's really none of our business.

 

9: Ever fantasize about being friends with band members? (JFZ)

 

Yeah, sometimes. It would be cool to hang out at a bar with a couple of the guys and just chat about the VK scene, have a good time. A friend of mine met Kihiro from UNDIVIDE/LOKA once and he sounds like a lot of fun to go out with. Meeting band members outside of their performance persona would be a really cool way to get to know them.

 

10: Do you want to be in a Visual Kei band (or any other kind of band)?

 

Well I do still have that childhood dream of fronting a rock band, but at this point I'm pretty convinced it's not gonna happen. Thank God for karaoke and nights when I'm home alone then.

1: Don`t worry about others, is Visual Kei a genre, or a scene, or something else, to you?

 

First and foremost, I would argue that visual kei is a scene, since a genre typically defines some quality of the sound or style of the music. What makes visual kei different is the 'visual' aspect. VK bands incorporate such a huge range of genres that it would be wrong to call them all 'visual kei' and be done with it. However, hypocrite that I am, I also personally find it convenient to think of VK as a genre too to some extent. I categorize my Japanese music for the most part into visual kei and non-, which then becomes rock, metal, or whatever umbrella I think the band falls under.

 

2: Most of the time can you tell the genre, or if you will like a band based on their look?

 

It's difficult to tell exactly what kind of sound a band is going for based solely on their image, although as a long-time listener of visual kei there are certain characteristics that give you a hint. For example, lolita styled bands like Versailles tend to have a kind of classical, technical style, while dark outfits and gloomy makeup make me think Nagoya or eroguro. The poppy bands like oshare kei conversely dress very brightly. Despite obviously knowing my own taste in music though, guessing a band's sound from the outset is not the same as listening to their music and their look alone won't suffice to tell me if they're worth my time.

 

3: Do the looks matter to you? If the same band dressed in Jeans and T-shirts with short hair, would you be as interested?

 

In a genre called 'visual' kei, of course the looks are important. But if my favourite visual band suddenly turned to casual clothing, that doesn't mean their sound would change too. The only thing that would stop me listening to a band I like is if their style changes too much to something I don't personally appreciate. If Signal had decided to switch to jeans and T-shirts, they would still be one of my favourite metalcore bands. I guess that's the difference - lose the visuals, and it's not really 'visual kei' any more.

 

4: Do you search for music by sub-genre, such as Nu-Metal, Alt. Rock, etc?

 

I'm aware of the infinite sub-genres people try to define rock and metal music under, but it doesn't really bother me. I tend not to search for music much anyway, a majority of new bands I come across are from news forums like these, or recommendations from friends. I have attempted to some degree to categorize my non-visual library into the broader sub-genres, but as I said before, that's reserved for anything I haven't deemed 'visual kei'.

 

5: Do you get annoyed when others label your favorite music as genres which you don`t agree with?

 

I haven't really encountered this. If I did, I think it would only bother me if it was clearly something very different from the style the band is going for. My real pet hate is people tagging Japanese bands in unicode for things like Last.fm, purely because it categorizes them uniquely. The only time you should tag a band name in unicode is if that is the band's official styling. Otherwise, well, you're tagging them with a different band name.

 

Bonus: If a band starts as Visual Kei, even if they change, are they Visual Kei 4 Lyfe?

 

I know this is a rule we enforce on the download forums here, but in my opinion, no. I can see how it is much easier in this case, where time is saved searching up bands' past releases, but there's no reason to continue calling a band visual kei if they lose the visual aspect. That's the defining feature of the scene, genre, whatever you decide to call it.

2014 Update! Onegai ~

Well this happens occasionally in iTunes for me, but it's easy to fix. Select all the files and either add or remove the 'album artist' field as necessary. That's all there is to it.