paradoxal

Post 1 - Top 10 Japanese male musician releases (♫ Just keep scrolling, just keep scolling~ ♫)
Post 2 - Top 10 Japanese female musician releases (I'm more of a J-pop head then I thought!)
Post 3 - Runners up (that should be in the above two categories but couldn't fit in), the mixed vocals + honourable mentions (all previously brought up in ChristMHas list)
Post 4 - Top English album + single (only one of each because I'm more of an Asian music listener than anything else)
 
My top 10 Japanese male musician releases
 
TK from 凛として時雨 - Fantastic Magic /

 
asobius - pray & grow / 

 
THE NOVEMBERS - Rhapsody in beauty /

 
MEJIBRAY - シアトリカル・ブルーブラック /


 
Lycaon - 馬鹿ね。+ 悪女の微笑 + Shadow /


 
AvelCain - AvelCain / 


 
Plastic Tree - echo /

 
PLASTICZOOMS - Secret Postcard /

 
yazzmad - niche['ni:tʃə] /


 
LM.C - PERFECT FANTASY / 

 
For the full length (unedited) review, click on the spoiler tag below:

Waaay~ This is great! : 3 Nice going guys, so happy this has been done. Best group on FB ever~ However, seeing all your faces is like being in the 'show yourself' thread, which I try to avoid stepping into because ya'll too pretty. NOW I'M TRAPPED. x'D

Yay, thank you! I will try my best to make the group a great one. ^.-

Yes, exactly! Give your eyes open and give everyone a chance and you will sooner or later find that special someone

I added the link to the page to the announcements so it's always easily accessible. If anyone wants to join the group, contact one of the moderators, @allisapp or @paradoxal  via PM and one of us should be able to add you.

This is also why they have a blue name, so congratulate them for coming up with an awesome suggestion.

Users with Lycaon avatars are the best lovers. This is fact.

I think I'd drop a few comments to this conversations since I have been together with my fiancé for over 4 years.
 
I don't think that being 'picky' is a good thing when it comes to relationships, nor deciding if someone is relationship material only based on your common interests. If I had been too picky or only cared about the number of our common interests, I would have never ended up with the love of my life.
 
I actually met him as a high school sophomore because I took a senior Finnish class. I heard him talking about external hard drives, and asked what kind of external hard drive he's gonna get. He isn't extraordinarily handsome, tall or charismatic. I wouldn't probably have even noticed him, if it wasn't for an old scar in his short-haired head that is currently just a small bald spot (skating accident haha). I actually asked him "what is that whole in your head", and then we started talking.
As it turned out, he is into cars, American rap (west side yooo), Dire Straits, motorcycles, computers and gaming. Back then I was into visual kei, k-pop, dancing, fashion, make up, hair extensions. We had zero things in common, but still we hit it off and have been together ever since. I love his humor more than anything, and he got me really into cars. I wrote an essay about electric cars in my physics finals, because I had been babbling about how much they suck. I started liking the things he liked, and vice versa.
 
Moral of the story? Don't be too picky. Don't be ridiculous and date only people who are at least THIS tall, have that kind of hair, that kind of eyes or people who like the exact same things you like. 

I think I'd drop a few comments to this conversations since I have been together with my fiancé for over 4 years.
 
I don't think that being 'picky' is a good thing when it comes to relationships, nor deciding if someone is relationship material only based on your common interests. If I had been too picky or only cared about the number of our common interests, I would have never ended up with the love of my life.
 
I actually met him as a high school sophomore because I took a senior Finnish class. I heard him talking about external hard drives, and asked what kind of external hard drive he's gonna get. He isn't extraordinarily handsome, tall or charismatic. I wouldn't probably have even noticed him, if it wasn't for an old scar in his short-haired head that is currently just a small bald spot (skating accident haha). I actually asked him "what is that whole in your head", and then we started talking.
As it turned out, he is into cars, American rap (west side yooo), Dire Straits, motorcycles, computers and gaming. Back then I was into visual kei, k-pop, dancing, fashion, make up, hair extensions. We had zero things in common, but still we hit it off and have been together ever since. I love his humor more than anything, and he got me really into cars. I wrote an essay about electric cars in my physics finals, because I had been babbling about how much they suck. I started liking the things he liked, and vice versa.
 
Moral of the story? Don't be too picky. Don't be ridiculous and date only people who are at least THIS tall, have that kind of hair, that kind of eyes or people who like the exact same things you like. 

paradoxal good sis you live in Finland, your European 4/10 looking average college educated nice guy™ boyfriend is already miles ahead of what northern 'murrica typically offers tbh
ugly str8 NA boys will find someone to comfort their d. anyway, nothing wrong with not settling early.

It lives!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/614639011975626/

I think I'd drop a few comments to this conversations since I have been together with my fiancé for over 4 years.
 
I don't think that being 'picky' is a good thing when it comes to relationships, nor deciding if someone is relationship material only based on your common interests. If I had been too picky or only cared about the number of our common interests, I would have never ended up with the love of my life.
 
I actually met him as a high school sophomore because I took a senior Finnish class. I heard him talking about external hard drives, and asked what kind of external hard drive he's gonna get. He isn't extraordinarily handsome, tall or charismatic. I wouldn't probably have even noticed him, if it wasn't for an old scar in his short-haired head that is currently just a small bald spot (skating accident haha). I actually asked him "what is that whole in your head", and then we started talking.
As it turned out, he is into cars, American rap (west side yooo), Dire Straits, motorcycles, computers and gaming. Back then I was into visual kei, k-pop, dancing, fashion, make up, hair extensions. We had zero things in common, but still we hit it off and have been together ever since. I love his humor more than anything, and he got me really into cars. I wrote an essay about electric cars in my physics finals, because I had been babbling about how much they suck. I started liking the things he liked, and vice versa.
 
Moral of the story? Don't be too picky. Don't be ridiculous and date only people who are at least THIS tall, have that kind of hair, that kind of eyes or people who like the exact same things you like. 

I think I'd drop a few comments to this conversations since I have been together with my fiancé for over 4 years.
 
I don't think that being 'picky' is a good thing when it comes to relationships, nor deciding if someone is relationship material only based on your common interests. If I had been too picky or only cared about the number of our common interests, I would have never ended up with the love of my life.
 
I actually met him as a high school sophomore because I took a senior Finnish class. I heard him talking about external hard drives, and asked what kind of external hard drive he's gonna get. He isn't extraordinarily handsome, tall or charismatic. I wouldn't probably have even noticed him, if it wasn't for an old scar in his short-haired head that is currently just a small bald spot (skating accident haha). I actually asked him "what is that whole in your head", and then we started talking.
As it turned out, he is into cars, American rap (west side yooo), Dire Straits, motorcycles, computers and gaming. Back then I was into visual kei, k-pop, dancing, fashion, make up, hair extensions. We had zero things in common, but still we hit it off and have been together ever since. I love his humor more than anything, and he got me really into cars. I wrote an essay about electric cars in my physics finals, because I had been babbling about how much they suck. I started liking the things he liked, and vice versa.
 
Moral of the story? Don't be too picky. Don't be ridiculous and date only people who are at least THIS tall, have that kind of hair, that kind of eyes or people who like the exact same things you like. 

THIS.
 
I'm pretty incapable of commenting on your list since I haven't tried almost any of those releases, but oh my god your list looks awesome and stylish and *insert gazillions of praising adjectives*.

yassss here for mh overshares <33

me^.^

casually posing with my fancy femme fatale bracelet #fagswag
 

No, it's not. D: Groups in Facebook are more personalized, people can see other Facebook users there and chat there with each other. I think your MH page (@FB) is quite official, so it would be nice to have more "relaxed" place to talk with other people. Of course, I am not totally sure what kind of subjects you can talk there (besides advertising thread and polls and so on), but I think it would bring the users closer to each other.

No idea where to post this so i'll just do it here since it's most important/relevant to uploaders.

If you share iTunes purchases, make sure your iTMS Scrubber is updated. Apparently iTunes has sneakily added a new DRM field called "owner" which extracts your full name from your OS system files. This field is currently not erased by iTMS Scrubber v2.3 (for Windows), which is the version I believe most of us are using. I verified this by making a purchase 20 minutes ago and running the Scrubber, and my name wasn't erased.

Here are the steps to manually update your Scrubber - you only have to perform it once.

Open itms-scrubber.cmd in Notepad or a text editor. If you're unable to see the "Open with..." option, go to Folder Options in your Control Panel, unhide file extensions for known file types, and append .txt to your itms-scrubber.cmd to force-open it in Notepad.

Now the 6th line of the code should read:

FOR /R %%f IN (*.m4*) DO START /W tools\atomicparsley-utf8 "%%f" --DeepScan --manualAtomRemove moov.trak.mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.mp4a.pinf --manualAtomRemove moov.trak[2].mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.avc1.pinf --manualAtomRemove moov.trak.mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.mp4a.UUID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.apID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.sfID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.purd --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.Xtra --freefree 0 -W

Replace this with:

FOR /R %%f IN (*.m4*) DO START /W tools\atomicparsley-utf8 "%%f" --DeepScan --manualAtomRemove moov.trak.mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.mp4a.pinf --manualAtomRemove moov.trak[2].mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.avc1.pinf --manualAtomRemove moov.trak.mdia.minf.stbl.stsd.mp4a.UUID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.apID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.sfID --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.purd --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.Xtra --manualAtomRemove moov.udta.meta.ilst.ownr --freefree 0 -W

You can toggle file extensions off if you've previously shown them to edit the file. That's all, the scrubber should remove the new field now. Steps should be similar for Mac version, though I'm unable to confirm that since I'm on Windows.

Hope this helps

pURPLE STONE (2013-)
 

 
Vocals Keiya
Guitar & programming GAK
Bass 風麻
 
Purple Stone is one of the most promising new visual kei bands. Sharing the same label as hyped 少年記, I think they deserve a lot more hype too. Their first mini-album NEXUS was released almost exactly one year ago, and now they’re finally back with their first single (not counting their first one-coin single Scar).
 
 
 
 
甘酸っぱいマンゴー (amazuppai mango) 
 

 
 
 
As much as I love NEXUS and Scar, I must say that 甘酸っぱいマンゴー (Amazuppai mango) is an amazing single. One of the strengths of Purple stone is undoubtedly vocalist Keiya’s amazingly powerful voice, combined with catchy melodies and well composed songs. Being a part of the new era of visual kei, they also utilize a significant amount of synths composed by their guitarist GAK in their songs. Add a dash of SINCREAesque metal parts, and that’s pretty much what the single Amazuppai mango consists of.
 
The A-side Amazuppai mango is a song, whose PV and song title make you giggle, because who the hell would make a song about mangos? I’m still 100% convinced this single was created because of “I dare you to make a song about mangos”, but nevertheless it doesn’t take away the fact that this song is one of my favorite singles this year (and yes I know, I declare this fact like 10 times a year…). The A-side combines beautiful riffing and carefully placed synths, and Keiya’s powerful vocals just take your breath away. The B-side Hysterical Lady is a harder song, and the chorus somehow reminds me of girugamesh, even though I’m not that familiar with their discography. This is undoubtedly a song that is super fun live, with lots of jumping and head banging.
 
If you can overlook the title ‘sweet and sour mango’, I think this particular single deserves 5/5 and a golden star, even though it doesn’t add anything new to the world that is visual kei. Purple stone hasn’t done anything ground breaking, nor do they deserve a gold medallion for creating something totally new, because they by no means have done that. Not every band has to be always creating something new. As generic as this single is, it’s beautifully made and definitely deserves your attention.
 
TL;DR: If you don’t like new visual kei, don’t try this. If you like new visual kei, try this. It's awesome.
 
 
 

 
 
 

Visual kei in total is a pretty uniform genre where looks and sounds seem to repeat themselves and get copied from band to band all the time.
Being such a genre it is I was wondering, if there are also repeating trends in song and album names.
 
How many songs / albums can you count which have either the same or a very similar name?
 
I think it's not worth discussing very common words such as death or love, because I think every band which uses English has a song/album name with either one of those words in the name.
 
I decided to make this topic since I was just listening to Lycaon's MASK and realized there are actually three MASK-named songs on my PC:
Dir en grey - MASK
Lycaon - MASK
Royz - MASK

i need to... play more civilization 5.... 

täällä yksi piilosuomalainen

who is mejibray

yeah but who cares

it's a good sound and we should be thankful that there's more than one band doing it.

The harsh vocals sound exactly like Arelquin's, which I doubt is coincidental.
 
 
All aboard the Para hype-train.