Nightmare - T O BE O R NO T TO B E

[morbiusss 10]

first of all, you have to give me kudos for the original typography of the album, please

but, in all honesty, i dont even know why I made the effort.

is it only me finding nightmare's records getting weaker and weaker every year?

this one's got even less to offer than the mostly terrible SCUMS. every song sounds so forced, rushed.

 

Gallows is a weak opener, TO BE OR NOT TO BE doesn't even have a chorus (but the song is actually "okay"), so it's to song 3 to get the album really started. But, that's Dizzy. Cool riff with one of the most terrible Nightmare Choruses ever. Weakest Opening trio out of all their records.

 

even after multiple hearings 東京都羅刹区 remains undefinable mess to me. and again, that chorus! They didn't pull out a really awesome chorus since Deus ex machina, and the chorus of that song was actually just a variation of the song's strophe.

 

Rewrite has a similar problem. Starts really promising, I had high hopes for anima-quality, but that chorus...are we in kindergarden? Good variation with the string section at the end. this could have been so good.

 

Thank you Melt into the blue sky.  Finally a good song. allthough it's somehow boring, and nowhere near all that great old ballads of theirs, it's the most listenable song of the whole album. I really love the acoustic outro, wasn't expecting that.

 

TRUTH has a great chorus, YOMI's falsett part is brilliant. still, the song doesn't sound very sophisticated. With thirtysomething I think I wouldnt want to make this kind of music.

 

Lullawhatever that title is so ridiculous. boring ballad. the key changes in the middle part are done very poorly.

 

TERMINAL kindergarden.

 

Drastica: Good beat, whatever verses, terrible break downs/bridges, uninspiring choruses. could have been so much more.

 

next song screams NOOOOOIIIIISSSSEEEEE 0/5

 

L.L.B: I enjoyed YOMI's singing "Love so sweet, Love zo sweet". haha, whatever. TERRIBLE.

 

KENKA DRIVE: awesome, really good. 2:11 - 2:21 is extra brillant. allthough the part which starts at 1.36 and is repeated at the end is a bit too noisy and bothersome.

4.5/5 WHOHOO.

 

2 good tracks but no classical stuff on this one. what happened? I feel like crying, really.

what do you think?

[Elazmus 1873]

IMO The best part of the album is the opening riff to Gallows, I wish there were more like it. It really wasn't substantial to me as there are only a few tracks I go back to, but it's almost always Gallows.

[Bunny 1140]

I have listened to ナイトメア since 2003 , and I used to like them a lot ,
maybe it is Yomi's voice been in my head for so long , and I am kind of bored of his voice .

This album is not bad , but for sure not their best , still better than SCUMS IMO ,
Gallows is okay , I liked the way they still produce solos that are not crap (have a listen at the Gazette ... what have they done to themselves !?)
TO BE OR NOT TO BE is a great track , but it kind doing my head-in when he sings : TO BEeeeeeeee , NOT TO BEEEeeeeeeeee , really I think the problem is his voice .
Melt into the sky. reminds me of their early music .
TERMINAL is kind of difficult to judge ...as I think this track can do both ナイトメア or 仙台貨物's way , the only thing needed to change is Yomi's voice , but again , this song's solo is great !
The most remarkable song for me is 極上脳震煉獄・弌式 , I think this is the only song that as heavy as their ジャイアニズム series .
Other then these few songs , there is nothing excited , I will give this album 

[DogManX 179]

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

 

There are bands who have a certain formula, some which they would rather die of than change or grow out. Some bands, like infamous death/thrash metal legend Vader, remain in this formula for multiple decades, basically playing the same music over and over and still being the epitome of awesome. Some other bands like lynch. started out strong, then became more and more boring until the point of plain useless. And, well, then there is Nightmare. A band that had an undeniable charm at their early times, managing to mount the scene with badly produced demotapes already, and continuing this story of success with a relentless output of solid releases over almost a decade. There have basically been only two times of "drastic" changes of their formula, one being during the transition to a major label in 2003..and the second during their time under pop music giant avex.

 

Ever since their release of NIGHTMARE it became clear Nightmare once more would try to be "progressive", in their own perspective. Rhythm or ground tone changes within songs, the more and more excessive use of synthies and disney pop melodies. Yeah okay, they wanted to try out something new, reach a new fanbase of kids and older people as Sakito used to say. On SCUMS these kinds of elements were already becoming more prominent, on TO BE OR NOT TO BE they drove this kind of, let's just call it progression, to the maximum... and they failed miserably.

 

Let's face it. Avex did Nightmare no good. The new fashion of releasing three types of singles with two B-Sides which are, in classic Nightmare fashion, much stronger than the A-Sides, gives the impression that Nightmare are in every instant just too squeezed out at the point of actually writing album tracks. I preferred to include the B-Sides of the Scum singles into (fitting places in) the album and voila, it became so much more listenable. I really didn't repeat my mistake (calling out bad too early) on SCUMS, which I by now actually call out to be a solid release, one of which you can tell they really tried 90% of the time. I gave this new album a dozen or more listens, but..no. There is no recognition, no ambition to play any of these songs rather than any other. They didn't try a bit to make this album a good one. And what can you expect from an album that has been announced merely a month before release and was iniciated by two HORRIBLE singles? Dizzy would have been an ok song if they would have been consistent during the chorus, rewrite was just a total mess of misplaced synths, great opening riff and a totally demolished chorus. In both instances this new trend of random rhythm change and much more random ground tone switch was the main cause of disaster. And it doesn't just stop there. They literally failed in every instance, excluding the finisher L.L.B, of experimenting with this.

 

On SCUMS at least only track 2 was horrible, now the mess continues over track 3 too. Gallows is good, TO BE OR NOT TO BE tries to be an intro and a full song at the same time - horrible outcome. It doesn't sound finished, Yomi's falsetto..erm..call?.. whatever it sounds unbearably bad. 東京都羅刹区 is..just there. It's not special, and it's one of those songs ruined by a messed up chorus. The obligatory jazz song "Truth" fails right because being obligatory. There's really no reason choosing this over their past jazz songs until even Masquerade. Two boring ballads..meh. The first one "Melt into blue sky" is at least not terrible enough to skip it. Ah fuck it, let's just come to the end of the album. I feel like the last two songs (on Type B which I possess) are actually the only songs on which I feel some kind of ambition from the band. Some kind of energy. It's noise, but it's fun noise. 極上脳震煉獄・弌式 has an ice-cool main riff and heavy drums, while L.L.B provides probably the strongest Yomi performance since 5 years or so.

 

So, buy it? That is the question. Answer: No. It's not worth it. If you can, get the few songs worthy and throw out the rest altogether, it's literally SCUMS this time. Nightmare could prove though (predominantly with Gallows, 極上脳震煉獄・弌式 and L.L.B ) that deep down inside they still have it... but if there is something they're bad at, it's being progressive. So, actually TRY next time, guys. And please just stick at where you're good at.

[dannemannen 69]

Nightmare has definately lost their spark, like gazette.
This album was boring... 4/10

[nekkichi 6043]

idk, this album is an improvement over scums to me?

nothing really stands out, but I had it playing on bg for like an hour today and it generally was not irritating. I like the small nods to their older music, circa varuna era, that they've thrown here and there

 

I really wish it had a strong non-single track like swallowtail, Q or droid on the previous albums, and kenka drive as a 4 minutes instrumental...

like I get that they were rush releasing this album, but why kill the best track of the whole CD by entirely skipping writing lyrics for it?

 

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

[morbiusss 10]

Hey, I did this: combined SCUMS and TBONTB songs together and created this little thing. It's still far away from being an overwhelming album, but it's definitely enjoyable.

 

01 Deus ex machina

02 TO BE OR NOT TO BE

03 Killed In Summer

04 mimic

05 Ame to Yoru ni Ochite

06 Lullabye

07 Isolation

08 TRUTH

09 TERMINAL

10 Melt into blue sky.

11 KENKA DRIVE

 

I especially love Deus ex machina as a strong opening track, Lullaby after Ame and Melt into the blue sky as kind of "Last track".

Gives me 48 good minutes

[nekkichi 6043]

that sounds like a much better list.

I honestly think they're one of the few acts (along with duel jewel and sadie who'd better upfront disband anyway) who should stick to releasing 300 types of singles and mini-albums and not even bother with long play releases for now.

[morbiusss 10]

you may be right. but singles are like junk food. An album is, just like a novel for an writer, what a musician should aim for. I just want them to take more time for each album, but it hink that will never happen cause music industry in japan is indeed "industry". if i remember correctly, from libido to anima only 1 year and three months past and anima is one of the best vk records ever released. so they are indeed capable of doing awesome stuff in no time. And because of that one album i will never lose faith in nightmare. I think they have an artistic vision and someday the need for releasing their "opus magnum" will come.

 

of course, it also could be the case that the members themselves LOVE their new stuff and think this is the best they've ever released. We will see

[DogManX 179]

@nekkichi that wouldn't solve the problem on a long shot. the best way for them (and the opportunity hopefully is given since there's a label change in sight) is to slow down on single releases to at least just one B-side, and focusing on full albums like earlier. that's what made them strong after all. TO BE OR NOT TO BE is, just like NIGHTMARE, nothing more than an unambitious loose collection of (mostly weak) songs. another possibility, although it's cocky, would be simply to implement some B-sides on the album, since most of them usually are pretty strong.

[Licio123 181]

Ok, TBONTB is not the best Nightmare album ever, and far from it (IMO it's their self-titled), but it's SO much better than the trainwreck that SCUMS was, where only the singles and Assaulter were barely listenable, and the other tracks were flying garbage.

 

Gallows is a pretty good opener (though I though they should have used TO BE OR NOT TO BE to open it). I like Melt into blue sky and Lullabybye, while 極上脳震煉獄・弌式 and 東京都羅刹区 are pretty catchy. LLB, Truth, Drastica and Terminal are nothing to write home about, and I kind like the instrumental track.

 

Overall, much better than their worst album. 7.5/10