Mihenno

I started watching HxH and I'm in love. 

That cover art is like a . . . Shadow of their former releases. *ba dum tss*

I started watching HxH and I'm in love. 

Artist: Sadie Album: GANGSTA Score:
The musical equivalent of the human centipede, where genres are held hostage and stitched together ass to mouth so shit flows in one end and out the other. Except one of the genres is emaciated, another is dressed in drag, and a third took five too many Xanax and huddles unconscious in the corner. Making heads or tails of what GANGSTA wants to be is fruitless. A convoluted mess of bad ideas, worse ideas, and terrible execution, the best thing about it is how little the name has to do with anything. If you like your clouds with silver lining, it's not the visual kei equivalent of Sasuke Uchiha's mixtape, but the turntable scratching and rapping still rears it's ugly head when Sadie is done violating all the other genres they think they can handle.
 
The beginning of the end of my expectations starts with MODE OF GANGSTA, which kickstarts this thirteen track tour de force of all the ways to not juxtapose genres. Evoking feelings of a coked out futuristic dystopian cyberpunk electro-rave punctuated with gang vocals, it's about as good as DEATHGAZE's Japanese Meliorism. And by that, I mean it's cool for eight measures and then it needs to stop. But by this point, you've already ventured into the ectosphere and are being pulled towards the gravitational singularity that is this album whether you like it or not, and the only question you should have is why.
 
One of the few constants within this album is how any attempts to extinguish the flaming wreckage only makes things worse. Lead single DEAD END's intro may give you hope - as a formulaic Sadie rock number they're in familiar territory - but even here there are signs that things are going to go wrong fast. Not only do I feel like I've heard this song before - probably because I have - but the song feels like a disjointed collage of half-executed ideas that don't play well together. There's some sugar, some spice, a funky guitar line or two, a chorus with complex delivery, token heavy sections, and harsh vocals that feel like an after thought, thrown about to take up eight measures worth of time. There's some good and some bad, but it's the most consistent track on here.
 
Differences in opinion over the first two tracks can be summed up into "at least they're trying!" and "diversity!", so I can't knock this band for having no ideas. But at the end of the day, the inability to execute a vision even with a multitude of ideas is not a matter of opinion. It's a fatal shortcoming that births tracks like WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND, which is the most clumsy jazz-kei attempt of the last decade. It also marks the point where the album crosses the event horizon and there's no coming back. They keep up their cabaret pretenses for three minutes before sliding back into their trademark metalcore sound so they don't feel too out of their comfort zone, but the awkward focus on English lyrics and inappropriate guitar tuning betrays the band's intentions. The left-field metalcore section sports harsh vocals poor even by Mao's standards, and the aggression displayed near the end is at odds with the rhythm in the beginning. If they had held consistent, it would have been an amusing LIPHLICH imitation at best. Instead, this is a muddled mess.
 
But it's not just WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND that sounds like a spiked cocktail of ill-executed concepts. The second constant of GANGSTA is that Sadie doesn't know what it wants to play. A puree of shit banded together by interludes forms whenever Sadie tries to coax ideas into places they don't fit, and a majority of the album falls into this category. Whenever they stumble onto an idea that might work, they suddenly switch gears before it can get going. It would be more prudent to highlight all the songs that stay the course - wherever that course may be headed - from beginning to end. For that, I give props to Tokyo Gypsy, MESSAGE FROM HERE, and the piano outro PHRASE OF LIFE. I would never say any of these three tracks are "good". Singling one out as the best song is deceptive; it's like comparing a turd to twelve less smelly turds. What we have here are three tracks that didn't elevate my blood pressure, and thus I'll take the road less traveled and talk about the few positive aspects of this album.
 
Tokyo Gypsy is a slower rock song, which in the hands of a different band could have worked a lot better. It's the first song on the album that isn't a total disaster, but the band refuses to let it's hair down and get into the groove. This creates unneeded apprehension in the atmosphere. Nothing about this song screams "Listen to me again!", but the greasy back alley male strip club vibe I get from listening to it gives it a place of distinction in my mind. MESSAGE FROM HERE is a six minute ballad driven by a piano where only the rightmost five keys work. There's a feeling of the piano sitting on top of the music instead of integrating itself to it, and feels at odds with the prominent bass line. It deserves brownie points because it doesn't have a section of asinine songwriting to ruin the flow, but it doesn't captivate me either. It's far too long for what little ideas they're toying with, and could have been four minutes and delivered the same impact. The fact that it follows another ballad and leads into a piano outro means that while the album takes a sonic detour into consistency near the end, it's sinks into obscurity in a sea of similarity.
 
I won't mention much of PHRASE OF LIFE, except it's a nod to Kisou and STACKED RUBBISH - a disjointed album ending on a pleasant note.
 
Once the piano from PHRASE OF LIFE twinkles it's way to an understated ending, my hopes are crushed. I've listened to the entire album but I don't know what the purpose was. How can GANGSTA be justified as the product of hard work and musical creativity, when corners were cut and questionable choices were made at every turn? When the band wants to play metalcore, I'm bombarded with rave synth, embarrassing gang vocals, bars of absolute shit songwriting, demented gerbil sounds that are supposed to pass for harsh vocals all held together with derivative pop hooks so recycled the logo is visible. How can one rectify the disparate influences that pull tracks apart rather than brings them together? Take bleach as a four minute excursion into all the things wrong with this album. There's prominent DJ scratching, more bad gang vocals, random unexplored changes in riffage, and melodic metalcore over a house beat held up by Sadie's favorite musical crutches. None of these things go together either on paper or in practice, but the band insists that they do. I can't find any redeeming qualities in this album, and additional listens of GANGSTA reveal more flaws and no hidden gems. If there are any in the music, it's hidden deeper than it's worth to find them.
 
There's trying, trying too hard, and then having no idea what you're doing anymore. Sadie has always been a straightforward metalcore band. The contention with their sound in the last few years is that they're using the same formula to come up with their tracks and they need a way to distinguish them. Thinking outside the box, gathering all of these ideas, and then leaving them outside the box defeats the purpose of gathering those ideas in the first place! If these ideas can't be used, they should be discarded. Instead, the box is as empty as it was before, the ideas are neglected like a child whose mother doesn't love them, the presentation is messy, and it's left to the listener to puzzle out what the band's true intentions were.
 
I'd rather vomit on tinfoil and eat it than listen to this again.

awesome.
every song is amazing.
I think GANGLION is better then exist†trace now.

Hello all. I've decided to start a "general WTB thread" which serves to pull together the random WTB threads that tend to get lost in the mess of this section after a while. As the title suggests, people who want to buy specific CD/DVD releases (perhaps even merchandise?) can make a post below with a list of items you're looking for. If you successfully find a seller, make sure to edit your original post.
Hopefully this also makes things easier for people who have a massive collection/inventory of items to sell but don't have time to make a full list (I'm looking at Biopanda )
If this works out as planned, maybe a mod can sticky it?

I'll be watching this topic like a hawk and swooping down to assault unsuspecting customers with deals.

Oooh yeaaahh!! Super cool, can't wait!

Artist: Shounenki

Single Title: In The Sunlight

Score: 

A new band shining sunlight for everyone to see!

 

Now I would like to start this by saying that I have truly become a massive fan of this band and I really love most of everything they have released, in fact I was curious if anyone knew the member's of this band's previous band's so I could hear what they sounded like previously.

 

 

Track number one out this two song live distributed release is the title track called In The Sunlight, this song is very beautiful and unexpected, the song start's with some nice and somber piano, acoustic guitar and what sound's like slight maraca work in the back round, then the lead singer's voice kick's in and it just work's for me! His voice sound's so nice, it sound's like he is right in front of me and staring me in the eyes, he start's with some very nice vocal's at a softer tone then goes into some very pretty falsetto note's. Then the drum's start and the whole song just come's together, the chorus is very good it get's stuck in my head for hour's, the second half of the song is where everything ties together and is executed very well. Toward's the end of the song the pace is changed and there is a moment where everything fade's out except for the lead vocal's and some piano, here is where the vocalist hit's gorgeous note's then the chorus is repeated for the third then fourth time but it does not feel repetitive nor tiring, it's just right!

 

 In the sunlight's pros: Amazing vocal work, very nice piano work, great guitar work to keep it pleasant to listen to, the drum work is also nice and rather playful

 

 In The Sunlight's cons: I couldn't really hear bass work, that was disappointing, beside's that I loved the single!

 

  Track number two is Namida No Utagoe, now this song kind of follow's the same pattern as In The Sunlight but it is allot more fast paced and has some distinguishing feature's such as the clapping along with the piano in the beginning and throughout a couple of verses. This song features allot more fast paced and energetic drumming and vocal work than the single, also you can hear more bass work throughout the song! The piano work is very nice in this song just as in the single and it seem's to just fit in, the piano never feel's like it was forced in, like in plenty of other visual kei releases. The guitar solo in this song is perfect, it doesn't detract from the energy nor feel boastful, there is also acoustic guitar throughout the entire song. Now the number one thing that makes this song great is the vocal performance! Kou the vocalist was on his best for this release, he didn't miss a beat, his voice was just so gorgeous throughout both song's that he amazed me! This song was so good I wish it was the single but either way they both were great!

 

 Namida No Utagoe's pros: Very nice use of piano and clapping to give a very fun feeling to the song, high energy throughout the whole song, guitar work that didn't bore me, pretty nice and playful drum work that helped keep up the energy throughout the song, top notch vocal performance yet again by Kou!

 

 Namida No Utagoe's cons: The bass still didn't feel very present, there were moment's where you could hear it but it wasn't very noticeable, other than that there isn't much wrong with this release!

 

  Summary: This single definitely shined some light into my life and made me smile! In The Sunlight is a great release and I would recommend it to anyone! Give it a listen, it's on their youtube channel!    

This is a weird question because in my mind there are loads of different ways to 'remember' a song. One is the way it makes me feel when listening to it - for example, some songs seem to inexplicably alter my mood (OOR's The Beginning has always been a really powerful song for me, whereas something like the opening riff to Signal's Undertake just gets the blood rushing). Obviously I tend to instantly forget songs that haven't made much of an impression, but as long as something catches my interest like interesting vocals, solos, riffs, lyrics, etc then it will probably warrant at least a second listen.
 
Music that I listen to a lot I can remember pretty much entirely. I could run the song through in my head without listening to it. And others where I took the effort to find out the lyrics (or translate them myself) I could also literally sing along to as I do it. On a related note, if a song I've been listening to recently or one I have listened to a ton of times pops into my head and I can't recall exactly which one it is, I can usually follow it through until I recognize a part of it that reminds me who the artist is or the name of the track.
 
Actually, my 'thing' is being able to name tracks just by listening to them. I know it's not a particularly unusual skill, but friends have told me even when listening to artists they really like that they need to look up what the track is called. If I listen to an album a lot, I could probably tell you its tracklist, or at least every song on it but not necessarily in order.
 
Basically in a rough answer to your question, if I'm not interested in a song the first time through, I probably won't bother with it again unless it's from an artist I really like. If I hear something I've listened to before, odds are if I liked it I'll be able to tell you exactly what and who it is.

now that's a truly powerful feminist response to all that abundant son/dad gay fanfiction, yaaaaas @ this declaration of empowerment and gender equality

What the fuck.

SOUNDS LIKE A JAM. I'm into it
 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25yu2q_royz-supernova-pv_music

SOUNDS LIKE A JAM. I'm into it
 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25yu2q_royz-supernova-pv_music

SOUNDS LIKE A JAM. I'm into it
 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25yu2q_royz-supernova-pv_music

SOUNDS LIKE A JAM. I'm into it
 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25yu2q_royz-supernova-pv_music

OMGyes.. this has to be my favorite look since INNOCENCE. too bad kazuki isn't in the band anymore

omgggg that look reminds me of Revolution to New AGE era <3 

So, well, I've wanted to join here for quite a while now, but have never had enough confidence to do it. I've actually, just today, decided to join as many social community things (sig..) as I could to try to socialise with the people I want to talk with more (even though I have no clue how to do ANY of these stuff on the internet....), but seeing as I known no one where I live who likes VK and Japanese music in general. So that's why I've decided now to join up here, in a random moment of feeling both scared and excited... So please go easy on me if I say something dumb or wrong, I just want to join in with you guys. There's too many awesome people here so, even though I'm shaking, I'd like to chat with you all as much as I can and make friends and just chat about what we all love.
So thanks for reading my pretty dumb introduction, hah, don't let me bore you, run along now or I might just be overwhelmed if anyone replies. xD Anyway, enjoy your day and see you around (love reading comments from everyone so I'll still probably stay on the sidelines still anyway xD) Aha, well, take care and everything.

KILL THE KING PV preview
 

 
Samples for KILL THE KING and Gravity are up
 
https://soundcloud.com/alsdead/kill-the-kinggravity

New look :
 

OVERFLOWING WITH THOSE VK VIBES

This news isn't that new, but did anyone check out P.T. the teaser for the new Silent Hills game? I was just watching some gamplay footage on Youtube but it's already dark outside and, not gonna lie, I almost peed my pants a little.
It looks amazing and I have this love/ hate relationship with horror games so I kinda can't wait.. ?
 

me again desu