12012 - DEICIDA OF SILENCE

[sai 868]

| Well at least you tried a little more.

 

So after writing a rather positive review on Alice Nine's new single, a terribly unfunny review of a rather depressing release couldn't be left unpublished. I am very sceptical about the new 12012. I wasn't a big fan of their music before they lost their main composer, but when he was still around there were plenty of individual enjoyable songs that got a definite spot in my music library.

 

When I heard the previews for this mini-album I slowly started to gain hope. The PV totally ruined that image, but that left aside, I had somewhat promising expectations when trying this mini after the shitfest that was their self-titled and CUNNING KILLER. Obviously, I was wrong.

 

身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜 is a progressive track that sounds pretty nice up until the 2:40 mark, the rather annoying chugging left aside at some parts. However, when 2:40 kicks in, I just cringe. The heavier section did not match the feeling of the song, was completely unnecessary and Wataru still doesn't know how to properly use harsh vocals. Luckily this section is rather short, so I am able to forgive them for that. If you look past the few irritations this track has, it's fairly enjoyable. They actually seemed to have tried on this one.

 

DEICIDA OF SILENCE was not much different from the average track on their self-titled, apart from the fact that they at least tried a little harder than on most of the formerly mentioned tracks. What I noticed in this mini-album is that the heavier sections always start at around the same point in the song, regardless of length. That falls more into the category of shitting out the same song five times in a row...not cool. Whatever happens at 2:00 I don't even know. Whether he's having a seizure or trying to summon the dramatic overlord Xenu I'm not sure of, but I do know for sure that even though it matches the song it just doesn't sound very healthy. That single section destroys anything slightly decent that the song had.

 

CHABOO-CHABOO was one of my least favourite previews. I don't have much to say about it, it's a typical metalcore song with bad harsh vocals, countless chugging and the overly annoying CLICKCLICKCLICK.

 

夢喰い was my favourite when it came to the previews. It starts and ends very well. The focus is more on the melodic parts than on trying to sound overly heavy and brutal...until once again they think it's necessary to incorporate a heavy section into a song that doesn't NEED a section like that in order to sound good or give it a darker feeling. I get the feeling that 12012 is convinced that they can't make "heavy" songs without having to put in countless amounts of chugging, blastbeats and awful grunting. And with heavy I mean dark songs, strong guitars...like drone, basically. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, I'm not an expert. Anyway, this would've been a great track and probably the best one on the mini if only they would've let that heavy section out. But like with the first track it's fairly short, so I'm willing to forgive them and look past it...again.

 

DOOR TO THE SKY has the same problem as 夢喰い has, misplaced metalcore elements. Overall it's decent with good parts here and there. The thing with these tracks is that you can hear on what parts they actually tried and on what parts they were like "how do we continue this? I don't know, let's just chug and abuse the bass pedals for around 30 seconds and then we'll be able to close it off without having to do anything remotely interesting."

 

12012 still hasn't found their way in their new direction and I don't think they will for the upcoming time. I just hope they realize they can also do the style they want to go for without overabusing the same elements time after time. It's not as bad as CUNNING KILLER or their self-titled, but in all honesty, that's not very hard. I hope at least some people will be able to enjoy this release though.

 

--------

SILLINESS BEYOND THIS POINT, BEWARE!

 

SO. I said this was going to be unfunny. As I'm still slightly torn on the fact I didn't get a flawless victory for my DIVISION review, I'm going to give a brief review of this mini-album in gifs. I am bored once again and my explanation on why I thought this mini wasn't very good has already been written down.

 

身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜

 

DEICIDA OF SILENCE

 

CHABOO-CHABOO

 

夢喰い

 

DOOR TO THE SKY

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

I've always wondered what mixing the Human Abstract with RES' last album would sound like.

[morbiusss 10]

| Well at least you tried a little more.

 I wasn't a big fan of their music before they lost their main composer, but when he was still around there were plenty of individual enjoyable songs that got a definite spot in my music library.

The guitarist they've lost never was their main composer. That always was sakai and enya, and both are still around

[sai 868]

This is a review thread, meaning that if you're going to post that it has to include a review. I'm just reminding everyone of that rule, before I'm going to have to be childish and delete posts like we did on the DIR EN GREY review thread. Please read the rules before you make a post in a review thread.

[nekkichi 6043]

I wonder who's shaping their creative direction rn, but they went from a semi-decent indie vk band into a mediocre jpopcore qt boys project which deviated into a dir en grey rip off, and with deicida of silence/cunning killer combo they're stepping into western bs core,
where terrible bands make same sounding terrible stuff and invent bullshit genre classification to sell their crap to basement dwellers... but why is 12012 doing this

as with their s/t, the only good thing about DOS are undercode-leftoverish choruses in 身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜, door 2 sky and 夢喰い
chuggoo-chuggoo is almost there with 2010-2012 deg remakes, how come this track never ended in garbage bin (where gazette is currently fetching their ideas from) is beyond me

I will be checking oricon for the few next weeks to come, I'm genuinely interested in their current sales (maybe they loaned a billion yen to self-promote now that they're on a private label), but this is probably their worst release to date, excluding the 2 major albums bc jpop can't be really compared to this nonsense

props 4 keeping most of songs under 3 minutes, btw, this is how diru's DSS editing should have been done tbh.

 

no props 4 not disbanding last december, there won't be a second date that fitting.

[ShanethVarosa 1209]

I would like to second nekkichi in the wondering who is shaping their artistic direction because it seems like such a weird... off-the-deep-end translation of sound, which didn't work on recent releases for me, but...

 

I thought THIS release was excellent. Maybe it is mediocre by some standards, when you compare it to some of 12012's greatest songs... Obviously it doesn't really compare, but I think this is a huge improvement from their most recent atrocities unto my eardrums. I was highly skeptical of Chaboo-Chaboo... Or whatever it is. Because I think it's a dumb name and the preview showed the worst part of the song, but even that was good to me. Like, the title track, EP opener, and Door to the Sky really did it for me. Sorry if this ends up being the unpopular opinion, but if they did more like this I'd be down.

[jduv86 224]

01 身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜 - Why did they put that heavier section in there? It was not really needed at all! The song was decent without it. This is my problem with 12012 currently. NOT EVERY SONG HAS TO HAVE GROWLS, GRUNTS, and/or SCREAMS! I do enjoy the ending of the song though. The piano is really nice. This song would have been near perfect w/o that heavier part. 3.5/5

 

02 DEICIDA OF SILENCE - Terrible vocals. I rather enjoy the instrumental as parts, however, as a whole this song is TOO all over the place. Too many change ups! It's like a whole bunch of ideas thrown together and then Wataru vomited shi**y lyrics on it. PV didn't help this song either...ugh! 1.5/5

 

03 CHABOO-CHABOO - The beginning felt really awkward, but I love all the tapping sections of this song. Once again, Wataru's voice isn't meant for these type of harsh screams. It's too intense for him to pull off and he sounds really weak. I actually enjoyed this song, but I think it still is missing something. I think the screams take away from this song. Maybe if it was like more intense yelling of the lyrics and not just screaming and growling, I could appreciate it more. 3/5

 

04 夢喰い - Very nice intro and the screaming is limited in this song which makes me happy. The chorus is nice to hear until he tries to go for those higher notes at the end of the song. Overall, not bad. Glad they didn't go overboard being aggressive. 3/5

 

05 DOOR TO THE SKY - Honestly, my favorite song on the album. The opening reminds me of Woe, Is Me, but that's not to bad. This is the first time Wataru's screams are actually very fitting! I love his vocals in this song. The chorus is beautiful and everything flows really nice into each other. Perfect heaviness and melody. If they can develop this even more, I think they may have something again.Should have made a PV for this instead. Minus 1/2 point for being lazy at the end of the song. 4.5/5

 

Overall: 3/5 - This is a huge step in the right direction though they still have a lot long way to go to get back to their greatness. Honestly, they need to stop trying imitate all these hardcore western bands and just stay true to themselves. I miss their days with songs like Pistol, Heart, etc. Just really well written songs and everything wasn't about trying to sound the most hardcore. If they continue down these streak, they need to compose more songs along the lines of Door to the Sky as it mixes good harsh vocals with beautiful melody. Also, they lose points for no ballads. Like WTF? Stop being brutal for a moment and give us a nice ballad.

 

Favorite:

Door to the Sky

 

Boo:

DEICIDA OF SILENCE (seriously did they forget how to write songs on this!?)

[platanity 99]

1. 身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜 : 1/5 - 'conceived sorrow'-esque songs are not good opening songs .. it reminded me heavily of hyde's jesus christ or some other song of his .

2. DEICIDA OF SILENCE : 4/5 - my favorable style of chorus

3. CHABOO-CHABOO : 3/5  - good start offs , few catchy riffs

4. 夢食い : 3/5 - nice few starting seconds but it gets messy afterwards  

5. DOOR TO THE SKY : 3/5 - nice ending chorus 

 

i was skeptical with the drums when i first listened to the previews

but the real deal sound really nice .

i still think that vocals high pitch screams need to be carved a little ,

but i see improvements -

except these few points , wataru's got good high note vocals (altho at times it sounds squealing)

[Ro plz 1290]

I'm gonna break this EP down as a whole...

 

12012 has shown great improvement since their self titled which was by far their crappiest release yet. A lot of the songs are a lot more grabbing and very enjoyable to listen to. With that said, I feel like they seriously needed to tone down with trying to be heavy on every single song. Also, they seemed pretty out there and no very well structured. 夢喰い was my favorite song on the EP but I feel like it was butchered kind of because of that same reason...and it was ridiculously short. What a tease. Long story short, 12012 sure did a pretty solid job with this release. Could have been better but hey they're trying.

 

3.5/5

[sebbivism 134]

身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜

The best track of this EP, no doubts about that. However I wanted it to be 5 minutes or longer. [3 of 5]

 

Deicida of silence

Well, this song could have been better if they just decided on what genre they wanted to play. The rapping part is ridiculous although I have accepted Watarus screaming&growling. [3 of 5]

 

chaboo / CHABOO-CHABOO

It has got a catchy guitar tune, but CHABOO CHABOO -screaming- -screaming again- is like a meaningless song, sounds definitely like a filler song. [2 of 5]

 

夢喰い

I like the first part of this song, melodic and regular 12012, but at 1:08 girugamesh came in and destroyed it. [2 of 5]

 

Door to the sky

Is it only me who thinks about DELUHI? Wataru sounds exactly like the vocalist in DELUHI, its almost scary. Also the mix of pop and metalcore... Bad song to be honest, probably the worst song in 12012's entire discography. [1 of 5]

 

 

Conclusion:

Nah, 12012, go back to the stuff you did so good. I liked the self-titled album (which everyone here seems to hate),  because it was such a mix between metalcore and regular 12012 songs (ballads etc). I will unfortunately never see a 2nd part of either DIAMOND, mar maroon or SEVEN. It's sad, with this EP and if they'll keep this "sound" I'm counting down to their disbanding announcement. Sorry but it's true. Nobody will buy a 16 min short EP with crappy songs again.

[Asakusa 95]

my review:

Not as good as their self titled album, not as awesome as their SEVEN album... but still a good record for me.
I liked it, simple, I enjoy listening to it on my way to work.
thumbs up.

[Wonrei 108]

Instrumentally this one's actually pretty decent. I like the metalcore in it. Wataru really shouldn't be the vocalist of this band anymore, though. If they want to keep doing metal please get that guy out of there. His harsh screaming is bad. Really bad and people should feel bad for liking it. Probably will never listen to it again because of Wataru, but the instrumentals are pretty nice, a lot better than their self titled album.

[nekkichi 6043]

I'll just leave this here

http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/324360/ranking/cd_album/

 

DOS is their worst selling release to date.

[relentless 254]

I've always wondered what mixing the Human Abstract with RES' last album would sound like.

 

I had a similar thought. Less Human Abstract and more current Dir en grey with RES flair. About halfway through the album I thought to myself "This sounds like RES's later releases", I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so!

 

Oddly enough I developed an interest (JUST interested) when Seven came out because it had a rough and crazy sound to it, I didn't necessarily like it, it was just something to consider. Then their self-titled came out and suddenly "Dir en grey-lite" became a thing for another band; but this time it's a bit more clear cut. The vocals reek of Kyo's influence I'm almost repulsed by it. Take that and introduce guitar work that bounces through the same measures (no extended phrases, all confined to a rock structure) and you have an album that though cool in scope, sounds like shit. This isn't just 4 guys wanting to be like Dir en grey, that would give them too much credit -- instead it's 4 guys who are trying so hard to be brutal but end up making something that's derivitave. This has all been done before (which isn't necessarily a PROBLEM, we can all enjoy derivitave things), though at the very least it'll be fun to see where they go next with their musical direction.

[Furik 832]

4/5 great release

wataru's vocals are good - when he sings.

his screaming could improve.

enjoyed their self-titled

there i said it.

[Licio123 181]

I have to say this is even better than their self-titled. Even Wataru's screams and growls have improved, but his singing is really nice.

 

4.5/5

[dannemannen 69]

Title track starts out epic, really love the atmosphere, until wataru starts singing... and the growling part really sounds like dir en grey.
The other songs sucks.

What the fuck is wrong with this band?
 

[Ro plz 1290]

I couldn't listen to this anymore...

[Lestat 2167]

12012 Is one of the only bands I like who have made this turn towards the death vocals. Since their self-titled I've picked up listening to them again and I must honestly say I don't regret a single minute I've listened to their new tracks.

This actually works. Wataru's vocals are simply astonishing to listen to in my opinion. But then again, it's really an opinion because I see a lot of review that are simply downgrading on his vocals. (might have something to do with personal taste i.e. the entire girl-choking drama) They give me that vibrant sensation of feeling alive and I get really sucked in to the music along the way.

 

For this record... I haven't been skeptic, not a single moment. From the first preview I was instantly excited and the single didn't disappoint me either in the end.

 

身千切りの莟、奇しくも恍惚の桜 - It's a nice introduction. The piano working up to simply solid riffs is catchy, you can't deny any of that. I feel it could've had a little less vocals in my opinion, or at least it could have been kept clean since the pitches in the clean vocals rise up above the piano nicely and keep it in that vibe. 3.5/5

 

DEICIDA OF SILENCE - Starts off with a blast for me. That riff is simply as sweet as sliding a hot knife through butter. This is just a nice headbanger and travels back to their previous release meaning they're still experimenting with this new style. I have to agree on the 'rapping' though. Not much of a fitter as it could've just been left out in the end. Really liking the runner up starting at around 2:50. 4/5

 

CHABOO-CHABOO - I like death-vocals. I like anthem-themed songs. And this is one of those anthems that just fits perfectly in the middle of a solid release. Wataru's clean vocals are amazing on this track, although I can not help having this simple biased opinion where he's one of my favourite vocalists in the scene. 3.5/5

 

夢喰い - More or less the 'ballad' on the record. For as far as 'softer' songs can go on this release. This is definitely one I'm going to be listening to a lot. There's a lot of technical difficulties on this track. Constantly changing riffs, experimental drumming with a lot of use of the cymbals (typical for your eerier metalcore track). This is definitely my favourite on the record, although a big bummer it's not even reaching the three minute length yet. It could've been a lot longer, six minutes at least. 4,5/5

 

DOOR TO THE SKY - Kiiiind of a weak closer. My least favourite on the record, although not a pain to the ears in the least of ways. There's just not really much going on except the breakdown. 3/5

[aiyuurika 5]

am i the 1 think this released great..? well i really like it especially deicida of silence n chaboo-chaboo..

 

as i followed 12012 from ucp time..yes the direction did changed n wonder too..n kinda dislike the screamo deicida..

 

but door to the sky..i..dont have thing to say..coz DONT LIKE IT..totally dont like it..

 

but the self titled is good too..

 

my review;

 

this mini album..all songs r in different music directions..

[Outnumbered 32]

I think this release was generally good. All songs were pretty enjoyable, with the best being Chaboo Chaboo imo.

 

I don't have any problems with the vocals, and am generally neutral about them unless they're terrible or the lyrics are aweful (especially if they're in English). On the other hand, I've only started listening to 12012 since their self-titled album, so I don't really know how much they've changed since their earlier releases.

 

Finally, if I had to give a score, Deicida of Silence is easily a 3.5 or 4-star release.

[YuyoDrift 1540]

Although the album itself was good, I felt as if was too much.

 

I agree with the lot. "Door to the Sky" was good.