Atreides

Sorry to dredge up a slighly older thread.
 
 
I generally don't listen to Oshare kei, but Aicle has always been a guilty pleasure for me.  I've never introduced them to my real life friends, nor have I blared it from a car or anything, but it is a band I come back to frequently.  For Oshare kei (and visual kei in general) I feel like they are very special.  Everything generally fits really well together, and you can tell they put alot of effort into their music.  Also, their guitarists are absolutely excellent.  Sadly, I believe the scene will never see another band quite like this, especially in terms of raw talent, effort, and uniqueness. This is a case of a relatively unknown band when they formed who came to dominate their niche.

I just finished up to current on I Am A Hero.  Man I can't get enough of zombie stuff.

Memories of Cynthia

 

 
A diamond in the rough that brings together all the qualities we love about 90's visual-kei.

 
Every age of music has a few standout acts, and the visual-kei scene is absolutely no exception. When looking at somewhat official sources of information on the subject (think Wikipedia or something of that nature), you’re almost guaranteed to find a few notable examples of acts that have irrefutably left their mark: X, Luna Sea, Kuroyume, Shazna, Malice Mizer, Penicillin, Color, Glay—the list could go on and on. However, there are also other examples of lesser-known names who were equally as enjoyable, but may did not have achieved the same amount of financial success as the greats. While the phrase “fringe acts are fringe for a reason” holds quite a bit of merit, intrinsic artistic value cannot always been measured by number of CDs sold. To me, Cynthia is a prime example of a hidden gem that goes unremembered except by a very small few. As an official reviewer, I feel that part of my duties is to preserve their memory and ensure that such a great band does not get lost in the sands of time.

On the surface, Cynthia were a fairly typical late 90’s visual band; band—gaudy outfits that were probably hand-made, long, flowing hair in a variety of unnatural colors, and heavy handed makeup. This was a time in visual-kei in which the scene was transitioning into its third era — softer, melodic bands were quite common and successful, but a new wave of darker and more flamboyant bands were was beginning to arise on popular labels like Matina and Key Party - where visual-kei started to branch out and really experiment with costumes as a result of bands like Malice Mizer and Lareine, and seek different forms of music that weren’t necessarily trying to be Kuroyume or Luna Sea. In this ecosystem, Cynthia was formed and produced quite colorful music that unfortunately has fallen to the wayside. Before their demise, the band released a collection album called Memories of Cynthia that contains the vast majority of their output in one location. While collection albums today are somewhat redundant, as most material is very easy to come be either digitally or in a store, the songs here are guaranteed to be better quality than their original tape forms and it seems like some of them have also been rerecorded too.

Having only tried them relatively recently, what drew me to Cynthia was their ability to take the popular melodic rock, mix it with some metallic influences, and add in symphonic orchestration. While most of the instrumental aspects to their music were undeniably artificial, such as canned background pipe organ and choirs a la Malice Mizer, the way in which they were used really caught my attention. Take for example, their song “in solitude.” This song makes fantastic use of melancholic vocal melodies and clever guitar work that is perfectly accented by both background pipe organ runs, ominous choir harmonies, and super dramatic tension and resolutions in their melodic progression of the whole song. This was the first track I had ever heard by Cynthia and was immediately hooked — the way that it is structured was so much better than a generic late 90’s song, coupled with their well placed guitar arpeggios that transition so well from section to section, made me know that this wasn’t just another faceless band (don’t get me wrong—no-name bands are my bread and butter) who was just cashing in on the eins zwei dreis of the time. While this song does have technical flaws in its composition and delivery, it makes up for them in its passion and capacity to really drive home a feeling of solitude, even if it is behind a thick veil of ridiculous campiness that I’ve grown to love.

From hearing this album numerous times, what draws me to Cynthia is exactly that—a solid sense of musicianship that isn’t afraid to not take itself so seriously. This band is prone to delivering bombastic guitar solos, super cheesy (in a loving way!) symphonic elements, and vocals that glue it all together with its raw charm that I can only seem to find in visual-kei. A perfect example of what I mean is track 9 – “Breathless Tears.” This song is a conglomeration of everything I love about the scene and all of its hallmarks: acoustic support guitar, ultra melodic bridges, English that isn’t quite audible, arpeggios accented by a completely artificial chorus, and a killer guitar solo to show that they can still play even if they did up the cheesiness to level 10. The ritardando (slight slowing down of tempo) towards the end of the song before the last rehash of the chorus also really drives the song home for me, as does the clearly classically-inspired ending phrase that surprisingly ends in a major key. Whoever their main composer was clearly did their homework and drew influence from more sources than just “Hall of the Mountain King.”

While I regrettably do not know too much of Cynthia’s history and their relation to other ~friend bands~, it was pretty interesting to hear that they often used guest vocalists to cameo on a few songs. While I do not recognize most of them, it’s a super call effect that I wish happened more often (Versailles’ “Princess” that used Kaya, allegedly, doesn’t really count). For example, in the industrial-influenced “Manipulate,” the core lyric during the chorus is “Crazy for you!” blurted out in between each line. Towards the end of the song you are able to hear several special guests chime in. While this song is fun in its own right for its very mechanically sounding guitar work and relentlessly obsessive melodic structure, the addition of random people really makes the song so much cooler.

Special guests are featured again in another track on Memory of Cynthia, entitled “Rain~Rain by the name of Desperation~.” While this song is much faster paced and more organic sounding than the previous example, cameos are made towards the end in a similar you-each-get-one-line between phrases in the chorus fashion. In spite of its ridiculous name, “Rain” is probably my second favorite song by Cynthia. It’s super pretty, yet spunky, and with a name like that you can expect the most music-video-full-of-face-touchingly-fun melodramatic cheese possible (side note: I’m both bewildered and happy that I’m sure people will know exactly what I mean by that). If a random reggae breakdown doesn’t peak your interest, then I’m sure the barrage of vocalist exchanges will. I do not think that they used the same special guests in this song they did in “Manipulate,” but then again I can only recognize one because he has an incredibly distinctive voice, and that is Yayoi (of Vice Risk / Deadly Sanctuary / Angel+Dust, etc and current owner of Rockstar Records). Fair warning: towards the end of this song, the very last sung part is a very big “for mmeeeeeee!!” that isn’t quite…the right note. He damn well tried, though.

In spite of their flaws, Cynthia were a pretty phenomenal band. I truly appreciate the intricacies they placed in their compositions and their out-of-the-box approach to typical song archetypes of the time. While I can see their success being limited by their somewhat strange quality of their vocalist’s voice, they definitely deserve more credit today than they currently get. If you check out this album and like what you hear, I also recommend checking out their contemporary partner L,Dear, another symphonic band that had some great guitar work but had fairly long songs similar to how X wrote their classics like “Jealousy” and “Dhalia.”
 

My buddy has been getting into An Cafe recently.  We do song rotations while we drink, and the other night he played like 10 songs from them in a row when his turn came up. I WANT TO GOUGE MY EYES OUT AND PIERCE MY EARDRUMS WITH A HAIRPIN

The absolute best concert experience I've ever had was in seeing Seikima II and Inugami Circus-Dan at A-kon in Dallas, TX in 2011.  Seikima II was on their 25th anniversary tour with stops in Tokyo, Paris, and....A-kon.  (an anime convention)
Biopanda and I got to sit front row, and......it was just magical.  We saw them the next day as they were doing autographs, and we got a poster signed.  I talked to Demon Kogura for a second too.
 

Yeah, I can't listen to An Cafe, Blu-Billion, RonoCro.. well, RonoCro had maybe 1 song that I found listenable.
 
.. I don't like the vocalists from Moran, yazzmad, D=OUT, D, Dir en grey. I might have liked some of their songs but the vocals ruined it.

This is me all over. I can make so many things but every night i'm like "well, best get a pizza".

No doubt, Kamijo have a great hairstyles

The thing about Kagrra, is that their music was not age oriented, or so I feel, so it can appeal to anybody (given traditional kind of stuff is your cup of tea); and that's the kind of viaual kei I like the best. I miss Isshi too. He was such an interesting person.

It's a shame Isshi died, he was certainly one of the best vocalists in the genre.  The great thing to me about Kaggra,, was their music never got old or stale for me.  It's very rare for a band to have nearly no bad albums or singles.  While Kaggra, did have a few here and there, they were far and few between.

This is me in an AY NOT DEAD photoshoot some months ago

@Atreides Moreover in a lot of cases the lyrics are utter bullshit. Luckily (or not) my Japanese is very bad Though in some cases those are irrelevant, or are the whole point of the band's creation.
 
Glad to see another Aurora appreciator

Being a very long time fan of VK (but not an elitist), my biggest problem with alot of Visual Kei is the lack of originality.  That singer? Interchangeable.  Baseline guitar riffs, cheesy (in a bad way) keys.  Those looks? They've been done before.  
 
This applies to many VK bands over the years, but don't get me wrong, there are still amazing VK bands that break the mold and are very original and talented, and as the scene changes, there are chances for fresh air and fresh sounds.
 
Just my personal opinion, but bands I think really broke out with their own style and dominated the genre:
 
1. Kaggra, 
2. Pierrot
3. Megaromania
4. D
5. Aurora ( One of my greatest wishes is that you'd released more than 4 songs)
6. Nue (can't wait to see what else they have in store)
7. Guniw Tools
8. Ayabie (specifically, their earlier works)
9. Janne da Arc
10. Malice Mizer (obvious but I had to list them)
 
 
I would list some bands I'm not too fond of, but I really don't want to get roasted.

Atsushi Sakurai owns my soul.
 

Yeah, Morrie from Dead End since maybe 2002 or so.  The man is aging like fine wine.  
 

 
Also, see profile pic.

Apparently many 90s VK bands were fans of Final Fantasy IV. I have found three songs whose melodies (or parts thereof) are based on FFIV OST songs.
 



 
First we have Luinspear's Veltair, which took inspiration from the Love Theme. (Jump to 04:28) 


 
La'chryma Christi's Forest sounds like the town theme (07:28). For me it was a bit hard to hear at first, but now I am sure the melodies are similiar (and someone else on youtube had the same impression)
 


 
And my last find is Rephit's squall, which sounds really similiar to the FFIV main theme (08:17), especially the intro.
 


 
 

This is probably the most nonchalant and tackiest rip-off I've ever heard. They don't even try to hide it. Wondering where Axl has been with the lawsuit all this time.
 
Guns N' Roses - Rocket Queen — vs. — PENICILLIN - love & peace
 


 
It was always clear where this band drew its inspiration from, but come on.
 

88kasyo junrei

Wow, I've never heard this band and they sound really amazing!  What's the translation of their name in English?  Like.. 88 kasyo or something?

Perhaps not an extreme case, but Margaret (vo/ba.) from 八十八ヶ所巡礼 tends to dress in women's clothing often + wear makeup:

I'm just some random dude lol
 

I don't know much about Starwave but I will say that I absolutely love the band Nue, so there's that I guess.

I'm just some random dude lol
 

秘密結社パンピー (Okayu San & Hakkun) - RPG
 
It's great chill song. I like how it's low key soft but kind of has this hardness with the riffage. The whipher/talk/rap(?) was nicely done, not to long or with a distracting voice, it kind of blended in so you could also here the nice instrumental that was going on in the song. Also it was just the right duration, not to long or short. When the chouros came on i was happy to see the singer was kind of unique with a lovely voice. And the guitar solo was sweet, not shouting "i can fucking shred." Really nice listen.
 

 
NEXT SONG: Charly Blacks & J Capri - Wine & Kotch

I personally prefer RES, but I have to admit at times Satsuki's voice wasn't appropriate for their sound. His solo is a bit too pop for me, but some songs really suits his voice. I've understood that many agree with you though...
I accidently came across a picture of Misaruka today and it pissed me off....reminded me of how bad they are. The first thing I saw with them was that horrible cover of Malice Mizer's song Gekka no yasoukyoku, and as a Malice Mizer fan I couldn't have gotten a worse start with that band. Saw them live half a year ago and that didn't really help, the members seemed rather annoying and the music is the kind which sounds the same (a cd sounds like 3 different songs, that kind). To be honest I could probably add all the bands on Kiwamu's label (except for Velvet Eden, despitethem going downhills I can't hate them since I absolutly love the first 3 eras)