[Band Battle] Dir en grey vs. DIR EN GREY

[CAT5 9075]

DIR EN GREY has been around for 18 years now, but when you divide their career in two, which half have you been enjoying more?

Dir en grey (1997 - 2005)

Gauze (1999)
Macabre (2000)
Kisou (2002)
Vulgar (2003)
Withering to Death. (2005)

vs

DIR EN GREY (2006 - 2015)

The Marrow of a Bone (2007)
Uroboros (2008)
Dum Spiro Spero (2011)
Arche (2014)

[saishuu 3220]

lmao

 

Dir en grey for me. All my favorite albums were released before they went the chugga-chugga route. After they "transitioned", I've only been able to enjoy ARCHE and some of TMOAB.

[Furik 832]

This is a very interesting thread. I got into Dir en grey when Macabre came out in 2000. I randomly downloaded some of their songs on Napster not knowing who or what they were. (Not to mention they were the band that got me into visual music.) Since then, I have been a fan. I will have to say, despite their earlier days being full of nostalgia, I enjoy their career in full. Every release has been something different and somewhat of a surprise. I loved how dark Macabre was and I eventually backcatalog'ed Gauze and loved it too. Kisou was extremely dark and I loved the constant industrial elements in the album. 

 

It was't until Vulgar that I truly knew that I loved this band. I was constantly researching them and following their every move with new singles (thanks to then other j-rock forums). Every release I was expecting something heavier and hoped the band would cross over to the States (as promised in the Vulgar booklet).

 

As much backlash the band gets, I am not ashamed to say they got me into Japanese music a lot (them and Mad Capsule Markets). Like I said, I enjoyed every release so far (maybe not so much DSS) but it's fun to see what they come up with in each album. Gauze and Macabre were pretty typical for visual bands of the time but Kisou was very experimental and full of electronics and industrial touches. Vulgar was their foray into a more modern almost heavier rock (thanks to my all-time love six Ugly). WTD was their way breaking into the hipster scene-emo rock. and so on.

 

I'm rambling. I just want to say I can't break the band down into two categories. They are very diverse and the band is still the same band they were in the early days. Just, each album is different and that's what makes them special.

[Pandabear 414]

Chose both eras. For me they've always managed to stay more or less consistent with the strength of their releases over those 18 years and I've enjoyed their sonic directions and executions. 

[kyoisKILLINGME 195]

im not gonna lie i like dir en grey old era better...cause i loved  the clothes and makeup and the hairdo's they had xD

but i picked both i mean i'll still like them no matter what they look like.. cause i liked Dir en grey for a LONG time now

 

my cousin made me listen to one of their songs...im glad that she did cause now i love them :'D (i said this so many times but im still happy that she did)

[doombox 4421]

My interest in Dir en grey pretty much died at Uroboros. So I voted for 97-05. *kanye shrug*

[yakihiko 1480]

Neither en grey

But honestly, I'm not a fan from them. The few tracks I like are from Uruboros, DSS and ARCHE

[Ro plz 1290]

DIR EN GREY, easily. The older era had some bangers, key live performances and most importantly they make the newer era more significant. But it was MOAB that lured me in and its been a ride since then. I enjoy the timeline that is Uroboros to ARCHE very much. Album wise, you see the growth and experimentation. Live, I believe that a lot of us can agree that they need hella work...they just aren't consistent in that aspect. But still, there's way more songs in that era that i can watch the Lives for OVER and OVER again. They are just that DEBO.

[fitear1590 2414]

Oh no you did not.

[emmny 4139]

ok cats open up the gates of hell ok cool

 

technically im a bit more biased towards DIR EN GREY because of the uroboros, dss and arche trio of DOOM but i still fuck with the older stuff really hard so aint no way im deciding between either, i just love my DEG !  ^.^

[Bear 1817]

Dir en grey, easily. Not a single bad album/EP released during that time. The band released their best album and songs as DIR ER GREY, but one of the albums among the worst ever, one is just übershit and one is mediocre. So this was a easy choice for me.

[togz 2004]

It's the end of the world as we know it

[Jigsaw9 6783]

While the old 'Dir en grey' was a fun and mildly interesting sponge soaking up various old vk stylings (and putting their own spin on them ofc), I had to vote for 'DIR EN GREY' cuz I thoroughly enjoy all the newer albums (and they also have just the right amount of experimental and/or surprise factor), while the old Deg had a few more duds in their catalog.

[DogManX 179]

I happen to love every era of Dir en grey, but I know I'm among those "lucky" people who happen to have no problem with extreme metal. I can totally understand why fans would jump out of their bandwagon once they got heavier, you can't expect fans to just randomly adopt a music genre they just aren't into, simply to be able to go on enjoying Dir en grey.

[Lestat 2167]

The era in which they could still be considered Visual Kei.

[Deathtopi4 428]

I picked both, since the only stuff of theirs that I really really dislike is some of the very earliest releases. 

[TheStoic 176]

If I was forced to choose one era, I would have a difficult time, but I have honestly enjoyed the evolution of the band from their early tracks to now.

 

Ain't Afrad to Die was the first Dir en grey song I heard after seeing it rated the #1 release of the month on a J-Rock website I frequented.  I had a friend of mine download it off Audiogalaxy, and I thought it was beautiful.  I always loved dark and melancholy music - and that song filled that void.

 

I soon after purchased 鬼葬 [Kisou] at my local Fukuhara as it had just been released, and I was captivated.  It was so much darker, heavier, and manical than the other J-Music I had been introduced to by my Japanese friends, and I embraced it.  After 鬼葬 [Kisou], I went backwards in the discog and bought Macabre, then Guaze, then Missa (that one was hard to find in stores) - and downloaded the early tracks and B-Sides that I couldn't find.  I became a loyal fan ever since.  From that point, I purchased every EP and album following it that was relased and have enjoyed them all, and still enjoy them all.

 

The more I listen to their releases, the more I come to feel that 鬼葬 [Kisou] is my most beloved album by them.  It was experimental and varied, with a great mix of slow tracks and headbangers.  But I still have grown to love their current incarnation, and actually have widened my muscial tastes becuase of their evolution.

[Pretsy 1343]

Cat...cat, cat, cat, cat.

 

 

1) I come from the same league as Furik or maybe even Stoic- as in being long-time (prolly senile, lol jk) DEG fans who still cling upon them despite mustering a large plethora of feels towards the band - love, hate, disgust, awe, confusion, nostalgia...

 

Even if I had been more likely to retell redundant stories on how early DEG affected my life and so on , it wouldn't rule out the fact that I appreciate cohesiveness of their works as DEG circa '06...to some extent. While MOAB and Uroboros prioritized the consistent formation of Dir's "primary sound" (which they actually lacked if we were to look back to Macabre or so), the latter might have motivated them to execute the (possibly) never-ending cycle of retrospective albums (feel free to contribute in case I missed the "new" on ARCHE for instance), without much new ado and whatnot. Is that "a sign of growth"? I'll leave it for you guys to think about for a moment.

 

2) 

 

 

The era in which they could still be considered Visual Kei.

This means you are counting "ARCHE"  in as well? No one from the band has ever said they are "out" from visual kei on that matter (also, as my lovely namesake put it simply: once vk, always vk)? Also, I will let their current antics be the main statement here, heh.

 

3)

 

Speaking of "duds", I personally see the primary metal direction they are cherishing ever since 2008 (since nu metal "is not metal", amirite friends?) as the main dud of their overall career. Why? It doesn't take a genius to note that various metal epics or just standalone bangers are just de trop and too over-the-top for certain key players in the band - Shinya as a case in point. Consequently, my current reaction towards any kind of banger (which cool kids call "br00tal") they are churning out in metal-like format is similar to how classicism aficionados would react to any kind of Dadaist piece...

 

I like my DEG as the band that doesn't overshoot performances and sticks to executable, coherent ideas and ear-friendly arrangements (mastering and dying cat highs, urgh). 

 

Summary of my mixed feelings:

 

Dir en grey

+ Appreciated variety of ideas

+ Moderate but brave decisions in terms of arrangements

+ Try-hard numbers kept to minimum (except for a few occasions, but JUST a few)

+ Ballads are really moderate but still retain their spot-on value

- No direction

- Clusterhecking value, no signs of coherent structure

- Mixing or mastering tends to get mixed (there are great moments, but there are also horrid moments)

 

DIR EN GREY

+ Obvious signs of direction/general idea per album, even with random experiments

+ Dynamic, collaborative riffcraft (to most extent at least)

+ Interesting aspects of arrangement or vocal-specific experiments (e.g. RED SOIL)

+ Heavier tracks tend to sport more oomph

- ...but are also more likely to get campy or totally ridiculous for the most part (um, "The Inferno"?)

- Ballads are much poorer and focus on Kyo's performance way too much

- Most  songs sound like as if they were glued together, rather than formed as solid, coherent entireties

- Retrospective concept behind each post-MOAB album is getting tiresome, stop.

 

All in all, I might be still that sucker with biased votes on old DEG - sorry guys! *Kardashian shrug response to Kanye*

[Licio123 181]

Naughty CAT     xD

 

Well, I love both eras. IMO, the old DEG has a lot more bad songs, which I just can't like (like most of MISSA and Kisou, Deity, Hydra, Garbage, Beautiful Dirt), at the same time it has absolute masterpieces (Cage, Zakuro, undecided, mushi, hotarubi, Yurameki, Yokan, audience killer loop, shokubeni, The Final, Spilled Milk, Kodou). The new-era DEG changed direction, but it is still excellent (Lotus, Different Sense and Rinkaku are my favorite songs by them, easily) with only a select few I really hate (the older songs remakes, lmao, along with Decayed Crow, The Blossoming Belzebub, Reikestu Nariseba, Rotting Root).

[Kaleidoscope 195]

Hard decision for me, so I will be diplomatic and choose both. I really enjoyed their newer sound and all their releases apart from Arche, but Withering To Death remains my favourite album of them, plus I clearly prefer Kyo's old, less nasal clean vocals over how they sound nowadays (I still enjoy them now though):

[enyx 903]

Aha, brilliant topic.

 

This is a difficult one for me as I find that my favourite albums from the band come from both 'sides' of their career; namely Macabre and Uroboros. Furthermore I actually find that these two albums have more in common with each other compared to, say, Uroboros and Arche or Macabre and Vulgar. I don't find that Dir en grey's discography fits as neatly into two distinct eras as a lot of people tend to. In fact I'd argue there are at least three distinct eras for the band: Missa-Kisou, Six ugly-Marrow, and Uroboros-Present, though even then I'm not so sure about that last one since I consider Arche to have more in common with their work from the Six ugly-Marrow era than with Uroboros or DSS. 

 

Anyway, in the end I opted for 'Dir en grey' mostly due to this:

 

DIR EN GREY

- Most  songs sound like as if they were glued together, rather than formed as solid, coherent entireties

This has been my biggest problem with DIR EN GREY in recent years (most notably on Arche and The Unravelling, though also noticeable at times on DSS). As much as I adore Uroboros, that's honestly the last album they put out where I felt that pretty much every song was an organic creation born out of some coherent creative vision. Since then a lot of their music feels more like it was forcibly produced in order to substantiate a new release at the expense of organic songwriting. So yeah, Dir en grey wins for me.

[Crube 585]

The DEG fanbase is amusing. Back before UROBOROS came out, there were debates on whether or not the band was abandoning their so called original sound as if rock/metal music was a norm in Japan before the arrival of KISS, Iron Maiden, and Deep Purple back in the late 70s and early 80s. Even then, the earliest Japanese rock band, Flower Travellin' Band was influenced by the likes of Cream and Jimi Hendrix. With that said, it strikes me odd that there were DEG fans that just assumed that X Japan and others just all of a sudden played rock music with NO outside influence. Even the band had "Western" influences even before coming to the States for the first time almost a decade ago.

When I first heard GAUZE, the production was so lack luster that I assumed that the release was maybe around late 80s and early 90s. I was surprised that the album only came out in 1999. Then again, I don't know much about the behind the scenes of a rock band that just started out in Japan versus a band outside of Japan. It's not the lack of "heavy" music that prevents me from keeping the first album in rotation, just the production value. MACABRE and the releases up to Withering to death. are pretty good, but sometimes I just want more power behind the music. Or as Clarkson would carelessly shout "POWER!" whilst driving a lorry into a brick wall. Or anything infantile that he does for that matter.

 

While VULGAR and Withering to death. were the albums that got me to listening to the band more, it was THE MARROW OF A BONE that got me to listen to the rest of the catalogue without skipping at least seventy-five percent of their music. I still don't get comments like "it's too heavy" or "sound like as if they were glued together" when it comes to tracks in this phase of the band. There are plenty of tracks that could easily fit right in with this phase of the band with modern production and little to no reconstruction. Hydra, Zan, Myaku, and FILTH could fit in with ARCHE and possibly UROBOROS. (Now that I think about it, I'd love to hear a remake of Myaku.) With that said, I honestly can't just choose between the two, but I won't delve into the argument of which era is better. There are a few duds in the early phase, but that won't stop me from listening to it.

Incidentally, I would have gotten into the band a lot earlier, but a certain fan girl who insisted that their earlier stuff was somehow heavier than the likes of Pantera and her holier than thou attitude about Japanese music kind of turned me off from Japanese bands. Then again, this is the same fan girl that claims that GACKT was the better singer of the band. Thankfully, I got into Japanese music through the likes of MUCC and Galneryus.

[kyoselflove 2680]

Both.

[Ro plz 1290]

You know how in every fandom, franchise, etc there's that one thing that a lot of the people like to over-exaggerate hate for or just hate because its the popular thing to do? The Marrow of A Bone is that for Dir en grey. Its actually pretty baffling to see how much flack that album gets when in all honesty, its really not that all that bad at all. Yes, lyrics wise, its a lil bleh but production and sound wise, it was a pretty original and cool take on hard rock/metal. Also, mixed in properly with a setlist, these songs shine so well. It also contains some of the bands best songs. 

 

I am so thankful that i decided to listen to that first instead of their previous albums. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy them from time to time but its MOAB that made me go "YES, I AM WET" and made me eager to check out the older albums and SEE where they could go from there.

[evilcoconut 109]

Lol, this troll thread. :'D

 

I'm not really a "fan" of Diru, but I like plenty of their stuff.  That said, it's easy to choose the first era.  Lots of memorable songs there, my favorite album is still Vulgar, etc.  The other era has some decent tunes, but it also has MOO and a lot of pig squealing.  When I think of Dir en grey, I think of songs like the final, red em, bottom of the death valley, drain away, audience killer loop etc etc  so that's always gonna be my favorite era.