Flash-Fab-Supernova

MIYAVI suing in 3, 2, 1...
 
Lol what did I just watch. It almost felt like a low budget K-pop video.

A mix between MIYAVI and G-DRAGON... it's bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2tDaQHxjno

Maybe this is where Satoshi will go after his pop star wanna be soundz and Girugamesh will return to the darker stylingz.

GiruGAMEsh. Wake up America.

My unpopular opinion:
 
I don't like the GazettE.
(or has this become a popular opinion? -haha-)

Congratulations to DIV!  Having just formed last year, this is HIGHLY impressive for a debut album.  In fact, it’s just a good rock album, period!  And this is coming from someone who started off with a very lukewarm impression of the band; I didn’t care for their debut mini-album much.  The following singles showed progress, even if it was a bit inconsistent.  But this album is a totally different story.

Early on in their career, I remember thinking DIV had some composition issues (夏の行方 and its B-side had almost identical choruses; unacceptable, especially on a three song single!) and that their electronic arrangements were uninspired and lacking (especially when compared to labelmates, UNiTE).  Both of these problems seem to have been addressed over time and I can say that the band is in top form on this album.  From start to finish, it’s a pretty cohesive listen.  There’s plenty of variety with well-composed, bright pop-rock tunes like “ZERO ONE” and “Place,” as well as heavier, more melancholic tracks like “ASTERIOS” and “VANISH.”  Unlike many other VK bands that make it to the full album stage, DIV didn’t feel the need to pad their tracklist with the obligatory “experimental” mainstays we all know like out of place “jazzy” track or “heavy-repetitive-track-with-growling/screaming-throughout.”  I honestly congratulate that restraint, haha. 
 
Regarding the electronic arrangements, they’ve shown some massive progress!  Whereas their mini-album featured a totally pointless “SE” track with aimless chiptune bleeps, there’s a lovely “galactic” synth sound that permeates most of this album. Sometimes, it lends an “epic” quality to the music, while other times, it creates a fun, light atmosphere like in “Chocolate Prayer”.  As Shanethvarosa mentioned, the way “interlude” leads into “ASTERIOS” is beautiful and the subsequent chaotic screeching and “wub wub” dubsteppy sounds are actually quite nice, mainly because it's used very sparingly.  That and the autotuning (another thing I generally find obnoxious) in “Teddy” are tastefully done.
 
One of the things that really sets DIV apart from most of the VK world is Chisa’s voice.  He’s not your typical, nasally, whiny, over-exaggerated VK singer.  He has a very “normal” (yet capable) voice and somehow that works for the band and keeps them grounded.  He’s able to serenade us with dramatic ballads like “I swear,” get us moving to catchy tunes like “Chocolate Prayer,” and bring some emotion out in heavy tracks like “VANISH.”  If there’s one thing that could still use work, it’s his growling.  He sounds like he’s straining himself a little bit, sometimes like he’s “barfing” out his words, haha.  But once again, the band doesn’t overuse these screaming/growling parts, so it’s hardly a problem.

If I have any real complaints about this album, it’s the choice of old singles to include.  夏の行方 is a solid enough choice (though as unrealistic as it is, I would’ve absolutely preferred B-side 蛍火 [hotarubi]), but I find SEASONS and ANSWER to be the band’s two weakest single tracks.  “SEASONS” has so much that I should love (the twinkly, soft piano throughout), but the “hooo-oooh” background voice annoys me and I find the bouncy guitar riff that leads us into the verse (starting at about :38) to be so meh.  As Shaneth said, “TASTE OF LIFE” might’ve been a better fit, since there were some other poppy songs on the album and they worked just fine.  “ANSWER” is a track I find decent at best.  It could’ve benefited from an arrangement overhaul, considering the band’s newfound mastery of the synths, but alas… This rerecording doesn’t sound much different.  In fact, none of them really do…  The only major difference I could detect was the background arrangement of "SEASONS" sounded (unfortunately) more subdued in certain parts.

But if the album’s biggest weakness is its old songs, that’s probably a good sign of the pure progress the band is making!  

Review Breakdown:
+Great compositions; restraint shown when necessary
+Almost all of the new songs are better than the three old songs
+Cohesive sound throughout album, but with enough variety
+Chisa is a highly capable vocalist
+Wonderful improvements in the synth/electronic arrangement department
 
-Chisa could work on his growls
-Old singles are the weakest tracks; shame that two of these songs end the album

   
An extremely solid debut! Certain to make an appearance on my my Album of the Year list!

In short: it's catchy as hell, well-written, coherent, Chisa's vocals are awesome. I loved it from the beginning to the end. For me it's a prefect debut album.
Totally worth the money~



(Maybe later I'll write a longer review.)

Could be EPIC or could be an EPIC FAIL! lol we'll see. Most of these bands are quality, but cover-songs are an entirely different beast.

kilk records has enlisted the help of it's own artists as well as other Japanese bands to pay tribute to both Radiohead and Portishead in the form of 2 separate cover albums. The albums will cover Radiohead's "OK Computer" and Portishead's "Dummy" album respectively. Both albums are set to be released on 2013.12.04!
 

 
V.A. /『Helping Hand -Tribute To Radiohead-』
KLK-2029
1,500円(本体価格)
2013年12月4日発売
1000枚限定
〈Radiohead "OK Computer"〉
1. Airbag (Aureole)
2. Paranoid Android (hydrant house purport rife on sleepy)
3. Subterranean Homesick Alien (Marybelle)
4. Exit Music (For A Film) (青木 裕)
5. Let Down (ハイスイノナサ)
6. Karma Police (Lööf)
7. Fitter Happier (Meme)
8. Electioneering (camellia)
9. Climbing Up The Walls (Glaschelim)
10. No Surprises (number0)
11. Lucky (nemlino)
12. The Tourist (speaker gain teardrop + üka)
 

 

 
V.A. / 『Helping Hand -Tribute To Portishead-』
KLK-2030
1,500円(本体価格)
2013年12月4日発売
1000枚限定
〈Portishead "Dummy"〉
1. Mysterons (miaou)
2. Sour Times (cellzcellar + 大野まどか)
3. Strangers (sundelay + 千代 "köttur")
4. It Could Be Sweet (matryoshka)
5. Wandering Star (COgeNdshE)
6. It's A Fire (Ferri)
7. Numb (urbansole)
8. Roads (araitasuku feat. Magdala)
9. Pedestal (monocism)
10. Biscuit (AJYSYTZ)
11. Glory Box (nhhmbase)
 

 
https://soundcloud.com/kilk/radiohead-cover-digest
https://soundcloud.com/kilk/portishead-cover-digest
 
 
 
http://kilk.jp/wp/archives/3738

I think what Nekki-chan was trying to say was that the single collection is only a ploy for more money since The Swan didn't sell that well and so that the band can probably get some extra cash for better production on their next release~. 
 
I WONDER if the collection that will collect the songs after PUPA will be MOTH or BUTTERFLY. 8D Or something else that comes out of a pupa~.

maybe you should check your apprehension of allegory first, idk

hahahaha i love u nekkichi

if you put as much effort as reading sebbivism's comment on the very bottom of previous thread's page, you will probably realize that the oricon link was posted here to correlate with this line:
 
"I'm sad to see their milking money campaign has started so early."
 
I'm citing it twice so you could understand how irrelevant those fifty thousand Chilean downloads are in keeping this band sustainable.
 
not to mention I'm unaware of any South American-Japanese campaigns to bring gaijin basement dwellers to see 12012 live and thus support their touring.

he is so ugly
their new band pic is qt tho, like brq on a budget or something.

Oh please. Takeru is the clown that made SuG even remotely interesting with his overly campy personality and gay faux gangsta dances. If you look at SuG as a parody vk band then it all kinds of makes sense because none of them are really all that skillful and the songs aren't that creative. Even when Takeru "raps" he looks like he is poking fun at other rappers. (Not to mention that weird part in the MAD$HIP PV where they have someone dressed like Deadmau5) Usually the things that are interesting are the lyrics and Takeru promoting that whole Club Kid vibe of Fashionable Party Addict. Plus the name is ridiculous. SuG = THuG. I mean come on. They even said they made Love Scream Party to get more over seas support. (And it worked rather well.) Not surprised one bit at this guy going solo when I normally saw SuG as his own little art project to begin with. At the end he was going as far as directing some PV's. Wonder what SuG and this new Solo will do next~. 
 
Oh look at that he even has his MILLION$ORCHESTRA line coming back. 

Was that a SuG pv.

Was that a SuG pv.

Ruki: "This album will be a throwback to earlier eras. We've incorporated sounds and ideas from NIL and Stacked Rubbish into BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY".
 
My only response to that statement is this:
 

 
I think that at this point we've all learned that we should not trust Ruki when it comes to "what the album will sound like". Remember he said DIVISION disc 2 would sound like DIM? Yeah, I'm not going to say anything about disc 2 of DIVISION.
 
Alright, now to the actual review of this album. Let me start by saying that BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY is a huge step up from DIVISION in the sense that I can actually listen through the whole thing without wanting to throw my computer out of the window.
 
MALFORMED BOX is probably the best intro the GazettE has done since 2010. INFUSE INTO and XI really don't do much when it comes to electronics. MALFORMED BOX does. I love how it flows so smoothly into INSIDE BEAST, which in my opinion is the best promotional song GazettE has released since SHIVER. It's insane, it's all over the place, but it's still good. I do feel like they could've done more with it (just like most of the songs on this album) but hey, there's improvement. The electronics ARE basically the melody while Aoi and Uruha chug along and are therefore really well incorporated in comparison to DIVISION and TOXIC where the electronics were basically some random bleeps and bloops.
 
UNTIL IT BURNS OUT sounds like a lynch. song, for some reason. Both the title and intro sound like it in any case. I like pretty much everything up until the chorus. The aggressive parts just don't fit together with the mood of the chorus (the same problem I had with the song I feel like this one sounds like, namely ASHES from the EXODUS EP). Not really feeling it.
 
DEVOURING ONE ANOTHER is pretty nice, probably one of my favourites on the album (good job Aoi). Could've done without the poor English though. FADELESS I already reviewed in the thread for the single, so I'm not going to go too deep into it. It's probably the only song on here that actually has some NIL/SR influences though. REDO is the lighter upbeat track on the album. It's not outstanding, but it's a decent track that I don't mind listening to again. I felt like the main problem with most of these tracks so far is that they're just not COMPLETE. It's like they could've done a lot more with them if they had released this album a few months later. Then again, perhaps they were forced to release another full length this year, or maybe it has to do with this whole 3-album contract thing, I don't know.
 
LAST HEAVEN is...decent. It's a standard ballad which is in each case better than QUIET. I like how they just went for a standard ballad and not trying to do another Chizuru or DIM SCENE because they've tried and for some reason it didn't work time after time again. It missed the emotion and build-up for it to be successful. On that note, I sort of like LAST HEAVEN after another listen. Luckily Ruki doesn't go overboard with the English on this one.
 
LOSS is also quite good, though it probably would've been better with another vocalist. Ruki just sounds plain flat and there is hardly any emotion in the more driven section. The vocalwork throughout this entire album has been incredibly boring tbqh. THE STUPID TINY INSECT I just don't like. It's a basic GazettE song but it just isn't solid. It sounds like a rejected b-side from FADELESS, which just isn't good.
 
Out of the remaining songs I only remember slightly liking IN BLOSSOM (after that 'urgh' obligatory heavy section it becomes a lot better actually) and 鴉 being a fun upbeat track with some neat bass (not rare since Reita composed this one). The rest is forgettable and were probably filler tracks to fill up the album. DAZZLING DARKNESS' intro was nice, but I didn't like the vocal work. To be quite honest, the last two full tracks could've been left out.
 
tl;dr
 
|| It is a step up from their previous two albums, but it's just decent. Nothing more. Like Zess said, there is not a single track that can be described as "the killer track" (like 13 STAIRS was on DIM) and the album doesn't have any specific high or lows, it just sits in between...and if average is a step up for a band, then that is not a good sign.

INSIDE BEAST sounds like a nu-metal remix of 2NE1's "I AM THE BEST". The bridge between kpop and VK is even more glaring than before.

Remember: Just because something has a certain tuning, doesn't mean that's the implied key (this is obvious, just felt like stating it). If Remember The Urge is played on a guitar tuned down to Drop A#; the key could still be B by resolving on the first fret (similar to what Hellion said with Drop B, playing a C on the first fret) -- throwing in the A# adds tension to the key and a bit of dissonance to go for that "dark" sound.
 
That low chugging in RTU is unmistakably lower than B. I would go with A# as well.

BTW the songs are only remastered. I would love to hear them re-record some major songs in their current style though, that could be hilarious

I wouldn't be too surprised if the songs weren't even remastered.
But OMG imagine how a re-recording of 太陽 sound.
I'd only be interested in re-recordings of major label material. Them fucking with more of their UNDER-CODE songs... just... no!
 
I wasn't too fond of re-recorded “6” party, either. Not because it was a "hurgleburgle-fest" or whatever, it just... idk, felt like the energy and the vibe from the original song was sucked right out of it.

There's a difference between taking influence and stealing melodies. The intro in Madara follows the drum patterns of Rinkaku and its chorus is almost exactly the same as a Dir en grey song (I can't remember if it's Audience Killer Loop or Marmalade Chainsaw)--way too similar to be anything but deliberate. People need to stop being so easily offended and accept that most VK bands are about as original as the people who write the scripts of the Scary Movie canon. Just because you like something doesn't mean they don't have flaws or that said flaws can be shrugged off. I mean for fuck's sake Nega's solo in Abase is near-identical to a segment of the solo in Dir en grey's Akuro no Oka. I love Nega but I saw that instantly. Not to mention the Muddy Cult/Obscure structure.
 
People are complaining that Sadie is stealing bits of songs, not that they're taking influence from a bigger band. Nearly every current VK band takes influence from Dir en grey. Like Zess said, you listen to an ordinary Sadie song and it's either the same generic number they've been using for years or it's a pastiche of cannibalised Dir en grey passages (and their potential is constantly being masked in favour of these things). That is not influence. The use of random acoustic breaks and faster metalcore section is influence. The Madara chorus is THEFT. There is no ambiguity: this band is getting too comfortable with copying. If you can't hear it, you're in denial. It's not that people who are "hating" on the band (although some might be); it's that the truth is something others are refusing to see. Remember Amentia?
 
 
That said, this album is really awkward sounding and feels more like a random collection of tracks which were given names and an order prior to being written, but most VK seems to do this. It's not boring (and when it's not stealing from DEG and merely taking influence, it can occasionally move from 'DSS on a budget' to 'reasonable proggy neo-VK-core' but it's nowhere near perfect. Madara might be near shameless but it's not bad. I'm afraid I agree with Zess on nearly every point. In particular, they should be playing things they can handle. They need to stop trying to be DEG and just be Sadie full time instead.
 
I should probably add that if this drummer is going to rip Dir en grey's tom-heavy style off then he should at least consider a proper drumkit. And the ride is just too loud.

Excited for a DIV release for the first time since I'm finally getting into them