The Nu metal 00's in Visual kei

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

Consider it a sister thread to the oshare kei one. I think this is a delightful dualism to make, and I am all about that vkei history anyway so I'll take any excuse to make another one of these. 

 

The adoption of the nu metal riff and attitude into visual kei's musical framework happened just when the scene changed forever with the implosion of the old labels and bands. In the usual visual kei fashion we were late to the party just about a good five years too. It snuck itself in slowly, making cursory appearances at such places as MUCC's Antique from 1999, Kagerou's Biological Slicer from 2000, Aliene Mariage's farewell album 21st Century from 2001 and probably in retrospect most importantly, Dir en grey's Six Ugly from 2002. By the year 2006 ( which saw the release of both eight's ILLATIONAL and Girugamesh' 13's Reborn ) the nu metal riff had fundamentally transformed the landscape of visual kei. Below are some examples of the development that took place.

 

Before I get to that though, I have to say that there's not many scenes that can even begin to rival the longevity that visual kei bands, venues and its marketplace have enjoyed throughout its history. Still living both in the underground and occasionally even willing to take the L of performing at a half empty Budoukan, it ceases to amaze the spectators that stumble upon it; all the while all the goths of the bat caves, punks of 77' and dadrockers of the whatever, live out their legacies either through grandfathers or hack retro acts that suck by default. Granted it doesn't look the same, but indeed the willingness of its adherents to assimilate new currents have kept the hangman at bay and those nails off its coffin at least for now, which has allowed visual kei to remain a relatively recognisable brand for just about a few years short of three decades. 

 

This thread while also about the seminal bands that managed to break through, is just like its oshare counterpart moreso dedicated to honor and celebrate those little bands that everyone other than south american blogspots from 2007 forgot. If you were that angry young man in your mid teens back in 2008 you ought to know this stuff by heart

 

 

If anyone can name an earlier instance of a just straight up nu metal riff I'd appreciate it greatly. Early Mucc is of course classic vkei and Tatsurou puts in just a canonical performance as the narrator of desperate hearts. Their nu metal sound would get thicker and thicker up until 2004, when they went literally out the deep end, supposedly almost disbanding by the sheer weight of the recording process. My preference however remains the very earliest releases up to 2002.

 

 

From the band that made one of the best visual kei albums of all time comes a ripoff  of "Eyeless" by Slipknot - that's the sound of Aliene imploding into disbandment. While I think it's undeniably shit especially considering merits of their career up to that point, they lowkey took part in pioneering the nu metal sound in visual kei. Keep in mind that at the time of this recording Slipknot's s/t wasn't that old, and it is a sound that vk bands would keep on ripping off for almost a decade afterwards. Another thing of note was that the vocalist Kyoka also ditched the frilly dresses and adopted the nu metal fashion! While his sins are numerous, this has to be his worst offense. Either way an important document for visual kei's metamorphosis.

 

 

If the disease had only previously been a cough, after Dir en grey got through with it the scene quickly became hospitalised by it. They would continue riding roughshod over the genre until 2008's Uroboros where they'd go on to do more of the scene's pioneering work. Say what you will about them, they've continued to stay relevant through all these years and I think it's only very recently that the scene has stopped riding their coattails as much as it has. 

 

I'll keep it at that, though rest assured there's certainly numerous other examples of the early usage of the nu metal riff from around 99 to 2002 of varying importance in the canon.

 

Early Girugamesh is what most people have their fondest memories of, and everything up to 13's Reborn is as good as gold as far nu kei is concerned. Their suit wearing while certainly not the first time it had happen in vkei, it was probably the context in which girugamesh presented it that made all the difference for the future: the blackclad angryman playing just nu metal influenced visual kei. Oddly enough I despised Girugamesh as a child EVEN THOUGH THEY SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME AS ALL THESE OTHER BANDS and it took me deep into adulthood that I finally warmed up to them at all. 

 

Unsraw was my Girugamesh in a sense that they were the filthiest band I knew in my seminal vk years. Hearing Unsraw sent me on a quest of finding the most rad nu metal vk band out there, and more often than not it just led me to the disappointments that contributed to the failure I am today. Yuuki's vocals made a huge impression on me and it was ever the more bitter pill to swallow that they got very boring very quick. Their Core the Child hits being contemporary with Girugamesh' early ouvre, they can also be considered of relative importance. 

 

This is what this thread is about. Look at those clothes, that breakdown from 2.10 that lasts for an eternity and Since1889 was in general just the quintessential nukei vk band. So bad it's good.

 

 

Despite this band having just about eek'd past the 2010 limit, they deserve mention being one of those final bands at the tail end of this fad. The look is still very much 00's and not the glitz of the 10's, and more or less free of the soon scene dominating metalcore riff. Glorious vocals as well.

 

There's a million of these bands, AND THEY'RE ALL GREAT. Post favs, early specimens in the scene, anything that fits within the parameters.

[Kaleidoscope 195]

Awesome thread! This kind of stuff was what made me love VK and I still enjoy it a great deal. Never really listened to Revier, I'm surprised how good their vocalist sounds, is he in any other projects currently?

You already posted quite a few of my old favourites (girugamesh, UnsraW and MUCC), but here are some of my most beloved nu metal riffs.

 

My all time favourite is D'espa in their [Coll:Set] and BORN era, it's the stuff that got me into nu metal VK in the first place - Grudge, BORN and Quarter Void are among my favourites too, but In Vain was just my daily soundtrack to being an edgy teenager (and still is secretly).

 

 

I also love the riff in Bouzenjishitsu and Black:List's Throw Hope away, awesome vocals for both of them as well.

 

 

Too lazy to add any others right now, but there are countless of them I loved, maybe I will add some later. I guess DEZERT somewhat have the feeling of nu metal VK, don't they? Might be the reason why I dig them so much right now

Edited November 25, 2016 by Kaleidoscope

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

You posted stuff I only cut out due to brevity. D'espairsray was my first vk band and coll:set was a tremendously important album for me for the longest time. They really set the ball rolling for me and Hizumi was my idol from when I was 13 up until those three singles after Mirrors when I disowned them for having betrayed the cause. Forgave them years later and today I'm even a little fond of stuff like Horizon. D'espairsray also deserves mention because they were one of the first of their kind around, although the very earliest releases weren't as nu metally as some of what other bands put out.

 

 I was once informed by my mother that she didn't enjoy the screaming when I played Reddish from the CD player whilst riding the family car. Definitely a watershed moment for me as a person and as a loser.

 

Love that Black:list song. It's a shame they didn't get to put out more stuff. They had a show here back in the day too, but of course I was a dullard and missed it.

 

15 minutes ago, Kaleidoscope said:

I guess DEZERT somewhat have the feeling of nu metal VK, don't they?

 

Most definitely. They clearly appeared at one point to identify themselves as such too, not to mention that they ripped off a bunch of the big bands like the forementioned D'espairsray.  

 

[lichtlune 915]

This is probably my favorite era of visual kei despite my stanning of 90s visual kei. It will be sorely missed.  :/ 

[robkun 4184]

Ahh hell yeah man. Lots of good stuff churned out during this period. One of my favorite tracks would be this one right here.
 

I might have listened to more of their discography, but I seriously don't remember. I do remember listening to this one track very heavily though. I remember when I first heard 'em, I called them the VK SOAD loll.

[itsukoii 1300]

oh, this is a thread i'll be paying close attention to. i love this stuff yet my library is deprived of it,,, therefore i can only offer this:

 

 

[nekkichi 6043]

oh this is good

deg and unsraw kind of cover my nu-metal vk playlist, but those guys had a lot of replay time back in my winamp (rip)

 

 

 

 

 

remember when everyone was so ~ vocally offended~ by this riff reused by one single wonders

 

 

[gojiragojira 17]

Miss kagerou... Miss daisuke...

[Jigsaw9 6783]

This thread... I am home. <3

 

My humble additions to the nostalgia train:

 

Spoiler

 

Dali - I loved these guys up till their first full-length. Then they became snooze-kei unfortunately for the most part.

 

Spoiler

 

cannabis - I only got introduced to this short-lived band a few years ago. Solid fun stuff.

 

Also, props for mentioning GREGORY and Kalimero, hell yeah!

 

Also, lmao @ that Aliene track casually ripping off both "sic" and "Eyeless" by Slipknot. :'DDD At the time I somehow didn't notice at all, even tho I was heavily into Slipknot.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

@robkun That's one of those bands I always knew about, but never listened to! I always put it off for some reason even though I enjoy the pv songs...

 

@itsukoii Gregory was great for the couple of songs they put out. Really a shame that the band petered out so fast and the members seemingly went nowhere, which seems endemic to these bands. 

 

Here's more contributions of my curatorial genius 

 

A band time will certainly forget. Yaminade sporting the most generic fashion and sound of the era and what happens at 0.53 is one of the most nu kei things ever ( in fact the only thing that's more nu kei, happens at the beginning of the song DESPERATE GAIN by a band called Hated. I was unable to find it on youtube but if you manage to get your hands on it, you will not be disappointed. ) Should be recognisable to anyone who scoured through blogspots at the time.   

 

 

Considering that they made it to like 2013, they must have been the last one of their kind to disband. Born in the heyday of the fad, there's probably a box that they don't manage to check. Also named after one of the most classic songs in the genre: Blind by none other than Korn from their s/t that's a western vk album if there ever was one..

 

 

I remember when Sadie was referred to as Dir en grey's juniors so much so that you'd think they were stealing riffs from the left and right like Grieva. That's not exactly true, and while the influence is certainly there ( l does that drummer remind you of anybody? ), this is more a case of the musical illiteracy of the dumb western weeaboo who can't discern a clear case of the nu metals from just music where a boy with big hair yells a lot. Sadie is also a band that stuck around for way too fucking long instead of just disbanding the second they had conclusively blown their nu metal wad.

 

 

Although nowhere near their best releases, Neo destruction deserves a mention because that riff is still being ripped off to this-a-day. I must have counted four instances of having seen it elsewhere, although the only ones I recall off the top of my head now are DEZERT and Mediena who took it wholesale. Nega got nu metally right after their first demo ( their best release ) and more or less stayed so until their disbandment. This goes to show that Kyoka wasn't the only one with nu metal aspirations towards the end of Aliene, and it's strange how they were suddenly unable to work together despite being into the same music. Maybe that just has more to do with that Nega actually started out really good and Kyoka hasn't been a part of  anything even remotely decent since like, 1999...

 

Because he sucks.

[returnal 543]

7 hours ago, robkun said:

Ahh hell yeah man. Lots of good stuff churned out during this period. One of my favorite tracks would be this one right here.
 

I might have listened to more of their discography, but I seriously don't remember. I do remember listening to this one track very heavily though. I remember when I first heard 'em, I called them the VK SOAD loll.

oh GOOOOOODDD this is good

this thread is going to be as bad for me as the oshare one is aaaaahh...

heavy but melodic nu metal is such a big Yes for me

[Kaleidoscope 195]

Man I love this thread, so many old favourites in here. It's funny how negative people were about nu metal riffs back when I listened to this stuff non-stop, I sometimes felt I was the only one who was not ashamed of enjoying it  

Totally forgot about kalimero, such a sick song! Do they have any notable (mini-)albums? Never went beyond that one song unfortunately I enjoy pretty much all of the bands mentioned, but Awoi in particular, I always had a soft spot for this guy's voice. Dali were awesome too, but I never got into them that much because of their inconsistent discography. I think I'm gonna check out yaminade's stuff a bit more, my brother used to like them a lot but I never really actively listened to them.

And Neo Destruction painfully reminds of the fact how great Nega (and The Black Swan as well) sound, but are completely ruined for me by Jin's atrocious clean vocals. I mean, I respect the guy for how passionate he is with his projects, but he just has no idea how to sing (even though he slightly improved recently).

 

@Disposable Haha great memories man, I remember my parents commenting on Hizumi with "why does he scream so much when he can sing so well" too. But yeah, I completely feel you there, I was really disappointed after those three singles too, but after a while I got into REDEEMER as well, which I think is actually a pretty good album (albeit not on the level of the two albums before) - Karyu was just a really good songwriter until the very end, just a shame that Hizumi's voice was so wrecked on Monsters.

And yeah, Black:List had so much potential, when it comes to writing memorable melodies they were miles ahead of many other bands. Missed them as well when they were here with Exist Trace

 

Some new contributions, I also really enjoyed early 12012 and of course everyone's favourite -OZ-.

 

 

On another note, are there any active/new bands who still play this style and do it well?

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

27 minutes ago, Kaleidoscope said:

On another note, are there any active/new bands who still play this style and do it well?

 

tbqh all ains bands are more nu metal than anything. Kuroyuri is obviously the best example and their album is a good primer on them. The Korn vibes are strong and a track or two is loaned from Girugamesh straight up.

 

12012 I never got more than cordially familiar with, though definitely essential as far this stuff goes- speaking of undercode however, the extent to which the nu metal influence made its presence know

 

 

As a testament to the flexibility of the nu metal ethos, bands like Vidoll managed to employ it quite a lot in their early days without particularly being known for it. There are a number of other bands who did just one-offs either as a dark atmospheric number or as a live staple 

 

 

[aetarna 69]

Both that Vidoll and Dolly songs were my FAVs in the days of yore. Most people who were screaming about nu-metal tainting visual kei were mostly pointing fingers at what happened with DeG starting on Vulgar...

 

I think these bands got a pass because they will still "visual" as in "pretty". 

 

But yeah, this and oshare thread? Puts things in a perspective. Both trends were so hated by then, but they were much wider and more encompassing than it seemed back then?

[doombox 4421]

Ahhh yes. This thread is definitely going to be gold. MUCC, D'espa, Vidoll, 12012. <3

 

Some of my old and new nu metal kei faves.

 

 

Especially older EYA has a ton of nu metal flair. They were able to broaden their influences as they went on but they're still a really strong contender for a band that was truer to the parts of nu metal that housed hip hop as one of the pillars.

 

meth. also worked a nice amount of it into some Nagoya influences. Still miss this band a lot. 

 

Arlequin seems like one of the newer bands carrying the nu metal torch (though further hybridizing it with a few other genres as well) with it still being a main vein in their style from the songs I've heard.

 

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

@doombox I definitely agree on EYA and it's a bit peculiar why not many other bands went as deep into the sound as they did. I presume this is because after the dust had settled from the initial nu metal phase in vk, most upstart vk bands started taking cues from other vk bands instead of the American originators - with EYA being the exception. I also had the fortune of seeing them live and being a part of the saddest  pity circle pit ( on the band's insistence )  of out of shape weeaboos you'd ever see.

 

Meth is definitely another blogspot stalwart that stuck around for a uncharacteristically long amount of time. My first time hearing them must have been on one of those MOST BRUTAL VISUAL KEI METAL BANDS videos that you'd might still find on youtube. 

 

The nu metal riff is so characteristic to visual kei now that it's never going to go away as long as they have guitars on hand. Now it's a co-existence of the newer core influences with the traditional use of nu metal that's been present for a long time now ( which is something that is quite apparent in a portion western metalcore as well. Back in the latter half of the 00's most the new core musicians had grown up on Slipknot which clearly showed through ). Visual kei is an unique mix however from the melodramatic X chorus to Luna Sea's soundscapes, and stuff just keeps piling on it.

 

@aetarnaYes, it's good that you mentioned Vulgar because there is a good chance it really was the most influential album released in the tradition. Iirc mejibray's tsuzuku said it's what got him to vk ( or at least made a lasting impression- CURIOUSLY ENOUGH he was also keen on having a band that played baroque's brand of vkei, so now we have these two traditions coexisting ) 

 

As an aside 

 

If you don't remember these kinds of videos then leave this thread. I reckon the lot of them have been deleted and this is a fairly new one as well from 2010, but at least the spirit lives on in the rad editing and bad english

[Pretsy 1343]

Not that it would be strongly connected to VK (question whether this is actually related to visual scene due to their frontman is still debatable) but Kiyoharu's SADS had an album in 2001 (The Rose God Gave Me) which imho may have served as some sort of inspiring direction in regards to combining nu metal/sometimes American alt. metal ideas with various "progenitor" ideas of heavier visual kei music (glam rock-metal/punk).

 

"Because" and "Porno Star" are already familiar to everyone (not exactly nu metal) but this may be the nu metalliest piece Kiyoharu has ever made:

 

 

Limp Bizkit-meets-glam metal-ish stuff (ofc with good ol' dose of spoken word goodness)

 

This may also count, I guess (influence-wise) - awkward rapping bridges and climax are something which one would imagine in a nu metal piece rather than in some glam punk banger.

 

 

But interesting thread hey!

Edited November 26, 2016 by Alroy

[helcchi 942]

@DisposableIt's important to note that the music scene in Nagoya, which birthed Nagoya kei, has traditionally looked to the West for influences and developed independently of Tokyo. Perhaps that's why a lot of 00s Nagoya bands such as EYA were still lingering in that consciousness, even though EYA was an extreme exception as Ryouhei actually spent time living in America.

 

Nu metal seems to have particularly manifested itself in the Kansai and Nagoya VK scenes (and by extension Shizuoka due to the influence of Sequence Records and Tomozo's fondness of the genre maybe) - almost every band south of Tokyo carried this sound to some extent.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other bands from the mid 00s include 

 

Reivier's contemporaries VanessA and As if in the darkness

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Kaleidoscopedezert clones DAMY (Miharu was a dezert roadie which may have influenced their sound)

 

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by helcchi
typo

[aetarna 69]

@Disposable Vulgar and the nu-metal dilemma was very divisive, at least in my country's j-music fandom. 

 

This is going to be a little TL;dr story time, but I still remember the fandom split that happened  around the year between Miyavi's solo debut and Vulgar release. Basically, the fandom that was rather unified around one space, split into two different communities, which could very roughly be described as

 

community A) which generally loved Vulgar, the new DeG direction, which they considered more mature musically and less focused on looking pretty [no more fancy dresses for Shinya or miniskirts for Toshiya!], while generally hating the trend of Miyaboos - aka this kid can't sing, but is hugely popular because he's so pretty.

 

community B  which wasn't populated by miyaboos, as the A) insisted, but admitting to liking Miyavi there wasn't a social suicide. They mostly focused on trv indies like Mucc, Kagerou, Baroque, karimero, Fatima and early Undercode which includes mentioned above 12012 and Vidoll, and wrote-off DeG as amurrican nu-metal sell-outs who betrayed the scene, and were generally horrible now.

Of course this was centuries ago, and my memory didn't kept all the details, but I just find it so greatly ironic, that currently we can throw Mucc, Kagerou, 12012 and Deg's Vulgar into one bag of nu-metal influence. 
 

Edited November 26, 2016 by aetarna

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

@helcchiBless, your contributions is the heart and soul of this thread. You've just summarised the spirit of the fad perfectly with all of those bands. Some I had not even heard of before like Gemmik

 

 I'm surprised I didn't link the blogspot and top 10 brutal vk bands youtube video staple DIE3IRAE on the first post. It's them with Since1889 and yaminade that I usually think of first if the topic steers towards this crap. 

 

@aetarnaI started socialising with other weeaboos only after 2007 ( the kids in my neighborhood were more focused on getting 2pac from winmx while I was wondering whether scalpel tron porn type on limewire was a real dir en grey song  ) and so I missed out on every bit of fraternising and ostracising that went on amongst them. What it seemed like to me however was the scene was quite uniform as long as the An Cafe's and D'espairsray's were still around, which were the main culprits along with deg and gazette who brought vk to Finland. When the first went to hiatus and the second died, they took the scene with them and left only smouldering ruins behind, along with yours truly.

 

The Piass going nu metal was something I never understood. I guess Takayuki felt like wanting to take a part in the fad and make some cash for once after all those years of activity. The vocalist had literally the perfect vk chorus voice and it's a shame that allegedly he just took off without informing anybody, sending the piass into the netherrealm of eternal recording hiatus in the process.

 

A band that was very popular in Finland at the time, performing here on numerous occasions and fukken Mikaru even dragged his other band black line to flop in front of the Finnish public the first chance he got. A very important band to me as well; in fact I quite fondly remember once being angry at my parents and choosing to sleep on the floor in protest and rock the spanking new vk band called Dio all night from the headphones. Now if I wasn't the intended target audience for this crap then I don't know who was! Self-flagellating weeaboos congregate here.

 

19 hours ago, Kaleidoscope said:

Never really listened to Revier, I'm surprised how good their vocalist sounds, is he in any other projects currently?

 

Hey I just found out that apparently he is fronting Fixer these days! I had no idea lolol btw what company starwave uses to shoot their pv's? they're all horrific without exception

Edited November 26, 2016 by Disposable

[lichtlune 915]

 

 

Even Lycaon were doing it for a little bit. 

 

 

When screw were actually good. 

 

 

 

 

I have to post UnsraW again for this. I had this song and pv on repeat all over the internet back in like 2010. 

Edited November 26, 2016 by lichtlune

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

@lichtlune AH I FORGOT EARLY SCREW. What solidified them as real nu metal majesty however was one of their first singles that had this diddy. Although a very limited vocalist even at his best, he briefly shines here and manages to channel the adolescent boy in me at 1.33- like only few others can. That section is followed by a fabulous vk solo also

 

 

 

[Licio123 181]

Nice topic, disposable! Loved that song by Karimero... is the band still around?

[doombox 4421]

5 hours ago, Disposable said:

@doombox I definitely agree on EYA and it's a bit peculiar why not many other bands went as deep into the sound as they did. I presume this is because after the dust had settled from the initial nu metal phase in vk, most upstart vk bands started taking cues from other vk bands instead of the American originators - with EYA being the exception. I also had the fortune of seeing them live and being a part of the saddest  pity circle pit ( on the band's insistence )  of out of shape weeaboos you'd ever see.

 

Meth is definitely another blogspot stalwart that stuck around for a uncharacteristically long amount of time. My first time hearing them must have been on one of those MOST BRUTAL VISUAL KEI METAL BANDS videos that you'd might still find on youtube. 

 

The nu metal riff is so characteristic to visual kei now that it's never going to go away as long as they have guitars on hand. Now it's a co-existence of the newer core influences with the traditional use of nu metal that's been present for a long time now ( which is something that is quite apparent in a portion western metalcore as well. Back in the latter half of the 00's most the new core musicians had grown up on Slipknot which clearly showed through ). Visual kei is an unique mix however from the melodramatic X chorus to Luna Sea's soundscapes, and stuff just keeps piling on it.

As @helcchi mentioned, I do think part of the reason EYA went so deep into it was the fact that Rhyohei spent an extended amount of time in America and is also a HUGE Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit) fanboy to the point that he has a portrait of the guy tattooed on him. Did you get to see them in Japan or was this during a European tour? I'm envious.

 

LOL I have to say I miss the large fan community that used to thrive on youtube before the Japanese labels started actively using the site as a promotional tool. So many great fan videos lost to the abyss now. *tear*

 

That's an apt description. Since vk is so open ended it can keep building off of the past trends and bring them back up when it suits, rework, reimagine, and keep evolving the sound. Which is part of what makes it so interesting from a western perspective where we tend to be really rigid in our genre definitions. Especially when it comes to metal. 

 

 

 

More gems in this thread. DI3SIRAE, VanessA. Saruin, SKULL, Unsraw! <3 Man I need to break out all these old albums again. I need to make a 00s party mix.

[reminiscing2004 617]

This came into my head instantly. Early Alice Nine kicked so much ass. 華想夢想紙 is a lovely mini, generally not very nü metal, but this song of course.

7 STRINGS THO

 

Also, if ムック's Kuchiki no Tou is considered nü metal, that's probably the best nü metal record I've ever heard.

Edited November 26, 2016 by reminiscing2004