~†~S_VK~†~

Omnibus Review - NEW AGE CULTURE～第二楽章～

2012-01-27T17:06:00.000-05:00

NEW AGE CULTURE～第二楽章～ [Omnibus] (01/27/1999)

01. Ｒａｙ - Escape

02. Distray - tear of mind

03. Lagna - Illusion

04. DAS:VASSER - attempt suicide

05. 地獄絵 - 十二匹の腐乱犬

06. Lumi/Ere - Glass

07. ＺＡＣＲＯ - ICE

08. Remage - 媚薬～シネマティックバージョン～

09. AZALEA- Schizophrenia

10. ＶｕｌｇａＲｉｚｅ - Escape for Die

11. BUZZ DEVIL - ZOMBI ATTACK

12. Ｓｈｉｖｅｒ - 開放サレタ君ヘ

13. vellaDonna - CAUTION

14. Madeth Gray'll - Le MISERABLE

NEW AGE CULTURE is a short series of omnibuses released by the Matina label in the late 90's. Surprisingly enough, no Kisaki band was featured on here with an unreleased song to boost sales like there was on the first volume. The one featured here is volume two, and it is a pretty lengthy CD due to the fact that it was made during Matina's prime (when they had the most bands signed to them, even if most of them didn't last for more than a single or two). This particular CD features some bands I know of but never really listened to (DAS:VASSER, AZALEA, Shiver), a band I was trying out (Lagna), some that I knew (Remage, Madeth Gray'll, vellaDonna), and a lot of bands I didn't know at all. Overall, great release! There were some bands on here that I head on another Matina / UCP omnibus and didn't really like because of a crappy song choice, but they seemed much better here.

Ray's song starts off sounding like a metronome, then has a lot of drunken yelling before exploding into a pop-punk song with a bit of rockabilly influence. Based on their look, and use of highly feathered editing techniques, I thought they would be more ballad-y like Zephyr, but they didn't seem to be like that based on this song. Pretty cool song: kind of interested in listening to their other stuff.

I've seen Distray's last.fm page numerous times, but I didn't get the chance to listen to them till now. From their pictures, which are poorly blown up scans since there aren't many pictures of them on the net, they look like typical Matina / Key Party gawfy VK. The song title "tear of mind" kind of gives off that impression as well. I guess that description is pretty accurate. This song contains similar musical hallmarks that bands like Madeth Gray'll use: loud and aggressive chorus, light and frail guitar during the verses, and strong blast beats for most of the fillers. Vocal-wise, Distray's singer probably isn't someone you'd like if you didn't already really like kote-kei to begin with. He's in tune for the most part, but his high notes tend to drift into nothingness from lack of upper register training. He's the same vocalist as LAYBIAL, another Matina band, and I liked him a little better there. "Tear of mind" was pretty cool, although I'm getting the feeling that this isn't their best song.

Lagna was a Matina band that I started trying out a few days ago due to their image. They're one of the handful of bands who used a naziploitation theme, and that peaked my interest in trying out their music. Overall, they are more or less melodic rock cannon fodder for Matina: nothing overly special, but not horrible crap either. This song is one of their better ones: it uses some nice guitar melodies as well as typical kote-kei staples for rhythm guitar and bass. The chorus of "Illusion" is okay--not enough variety in the notes chosen in my opinion (if that even makes sense? I am trying to say that he used the same note for most of phrasing in the melody and it would have been a little more interesting if he strayed from the range of 4 notes used a bit). Same as Distray: if you didn't love kote-kei before listening to this, you probably won't love it now either. But if you do like this kind of stuff, then more for you to love. Another similarity is that their vocalist also went on to another Matina band named Garden (not the same one as Kisaki, however).

Next up is DAS:VASSER. They're a pretty popular Matina band among many western kote-kei lovers for their dark, punk / post-punk music. I believe they were also fairly popular when they were active as well, until the end of their career. Kyouhei, their vocalist, is actually able to speak English very well and he is still active in the scene today in the band Number Mouse. From his Twitter, he often updates on his career and happenings and even keeps a blog in English. I've heard from friends who are big fans of this band that his blog posts towards the end of DAS:VASSER were pretty depressing, pointing out many difficulties of being in a visual-kei band. He's also started his own history collection that can be found on the WE LOVE UCP's Live Journal's owner's journal, documenting their costume history and their struggle to make in the business. Also, they revived at the end of 2011, and plan on resuming activities for about a year or so.

"Attempt suicide" is a very aggressive song, as the name would imply. It's fast tempoed with growled vocals from time to time, along with a gothic rock influenced melody similar to ones Madeth Gray'll would have written. The first time I listened to DAS:VASSER I didn't like them. They were on that UCP omnibus that I was talking about, released in 2007 or so to redistribute some Matina bands' material, and the song chosen there was kind of boring. I enjoy "attempt suicide" much more since it's growly and angry, just like me.

Awkward, hard-core death rock band with most of their scrobblings coming from 1 account. I bet you know how this is going to go. Alright, so they're pretty gawfy like Mercurio and other death rock acts that Brazil is absolutely infatuated with. If you don't like this kind of music then you'll hate 地獄絵 . I enjoy this kind of music sparingly, so it was alright to listen to since it's more or less the only song on the CD of this style.

Alright, so I've never heard of Lumi\ere before, and I wasn't expecting much of them either. Jesus Christ, these guys were perfect. Out of no where comes this absolutely GORGEOUS song whose length (7 minutes, pretty long for a VK song that isn't a ballad) is no where near enough. Seriously blew me out of the water with how unexpectedly good the song "Glass" is. What should you expect from this song?Fantastic, gothic rock, guitar work that is rather complicated for bands of this nature, soft, ethereal, and high pitched male vocals, and everything good about frilly 90's VK all in one spot. Hallmarks aside, this band does bring a lot of rather progressive elements (in comparison to contemporary examples) to the table, such as several melodic themes in the guitar throughout the song so it's not the same frail arpeggio over and over again, evoking transitions, and feelings of guilt and self lamenting that this band did not release more than this song a demo or two. Honestly, this omnibus is worth physically buying just for this song alone. "Glass" is another rare VK gem, along with the La Feerie song I already wrote about.

ＺＡＣＲＯ, whose tag absolutely refuses to work on Last.fm , kind of sounds like MIRAGE to me. They have the same dark sound with a bit of a bright melodic influence here and there as well. The song "ICE" sounds a bit like Risk en Eve era MIRAGE, so I guess that makes it pretty good. Honestly, no strong feelings about them one way or another.

Remage were a dark, SYNDROME-esque Matina band. They had some cool promotional pictures, but their music never really did a whole lot of me. It's not bad, but I feel like I've heard this kind of dark and melancholic song 1000 times already. While they do a lot of things right, they do it in a very play-it-safe manner that doesn't make them remarkable in my opinion. Give "媚薬～シネマティックバージョン～" a spin and see what you think. If I recall correctly, the rest of their stuff kind of sounds like that song too, so you might really enjoy them if you like the omnibus track.

AZALEA were kind of crazy. Their vocalist was the late vocalist of SCHWEIN and he has repeatedly been in bands that are either very aggressive, or a strange fusion of punk genres. "Schizophrenia" is no different: dark and foreboding with a growled chorus and strange gang vocals smattered throughout. The vocals aren't very streamable, so I wouldn't recommend them unless you're a seasoned kote fan. Definitely one of Hina's most raw bands.

I've never heard of VulgaRize before this omnibus, both the word nor the band. Their song "Escape for die" (what?) uses a lot of distortion on the vocals, like all too many visual-kei bands do, for the most part, and the true clean vocals are kind of okay. The song itself has a thrash metal feel to it, but that genre does not fit with the vocals at all. There is a pretty nice guitar solo in this song as well that's a good flaunt length, but isn't too long and boring and isn't too short and try-hard. Overall, they're a pretty nice find, but I get this feeling that they really didn't do much of anything in their career.

BUZZ DEVIL was an interesting choice to put on here. Their choice of song is called "ZOMBI ATTACK," and it is a hard-core horror-punk song with movie samples and everything. The guitars are kind of crusty and the vocals are growled in a kind of manly fashion, for once. To be honest, most people would probably think that they were white based on the vocals. I know nothing else about them.

I've heard of SHIVER, but I never got to listen to them. This song is a pretty basic dark and melodic visual-kei song with kind of iffy vocals. Apparently people like them a lot because their guitarist is now in Merry? I don't listen to Merry, so that has no affect on me. I liked this song a lot more the second time I listened to it, but on the first time through it seemed like more Matina cannon fodder to me. I'm sure they have better songs than "開放サレタ君ヘ."

Love vellaDonna. Fantastic speed metal with very nice vocals--a very atypical Matina band. Although "CAUTION" is not my favorite song by them, it is a very good display of their talent. Fast guitar work, crazy bass lines, and hair metal everywhere, vellaDonna are great for all stale metal lovers everywhere. The band was also very fruitful and put out a decent amount of material too, so fear not the curse of 3 songs.

Look familiar? Madeth Gray'll were featured as the last band on this omnibus, releasing their "Le MISERABLE" track. This song starts off with a soft piano intro before turning to the true face of this song: dark, depressing, and kind of vengeful. "Le MISERABLE" isn't their most aggressive song: it has a nice balance of their melodic and emotional elements with their crazy, outbursts of emotions, ones. I really like the guitar riff used between bridges of the song as well as how airy the actual chorus of the song is in comparison to the yelling fest that just happened prior. I do not believe that this is the same version of the song featured on their History Album.

Wow, this took forever to write. Especially with a sinus headache.

Useless ratings:

Variety: 8.5/10

Band Choice: 9.5/10

Song Choice: 9.5 /10

Bands to Look into Bonus: +.02

VK Gems Bonus: +.02

Average: 95.6%

Omnibus Review - Emergency Express '93 Dead Angle 死角を突け！

2012-01-25T21:44:00.002-05:00

Emergency Express '93 Dead Angle 死角を突け！[Omnibus] (02/01/1993)

01. 黒夢 - MISSING GLORY

02. Red Tail Cat - Lady

03. FAST DRAW - Don't Worry My Son

04. ＵＮＣＨＡＩＮ - Power Games

05. Zirety - Shade of Blue

06. ＡＬＬＩＧＡＴＯＲ - Nasty

07. Banana Fish - Swing Out

08. DIZZY RUCK - Wander Desire

09. Ber:Sati - Under the Moon Light

10. ジョリーピックルス - My Father Die

11. 妖花 - Manipulate

This was recently upped onto an old-school vkei blog and I decided to try it out. I only knew of 2 bands on here, but that didn't really make a difference to me. It ended up being 90% early Free Will speed / thrash metal or punk rock, so if you're not into that kind of music, than this isn't the omnibus for you.

The following picture is credit to Herpes for finding. Please credit him and Auto-mod if you are going to repost okay.

Wow, the 90's was bad a photo editing. Why would you ever put a red filter over every picture?

Kuroyume are a very famous visual-kei band, responsible for most of the late 90's melodic rock visual group's musical direction in one way or another. Like many bands who make it big, their style changed dramatically from their start to end, with their later stuff being more garage punk than melodic rock. They revived in 2011 and a lot of fans seem to think that they sound like their vocalist's solo project part 2. I've never really listened to them because I place my early vk prayers into Penicillin (whom I've heard is kind of similar) and haven't really gotten around to trying out landmark albums like Feminism yet. This is also the band that early Dir en Grey ripped off, so that's why the rest of visual-kei ripped them off [/drama educing].

"MISSING GLORY" seems like a typical 90's melodic rock rush song to me, similar to stuff D≒SIRE has done, among many others, but this might be the actual source of that. I found it to be a nice song, but it's rather nondescript to me. Aggressive drumming, outburst of emotions vocals a la Madeth Gray'll, and a pretty nice guitar solo. Probably not the pinnacle of their career, so I'm not a convert to the church of Kiyoharu.

This was when fashion was dead, mind you. Red Tail Cat were signed to Free Will and were a proto-visual-kei band. I don't know what they normally sound like since this is their only song I could find, but I assume that they are some sort of melodic rock / thrash metal hybrid. Interestingly enough, they're still around and performing today. I doubt they've released anything in 15 years, though.

"Lady" gives me a kind of 70's folk vibe to. The instrumentals consist of light guitar work, with a predominately bass driven melodic structure. The vocals are a lot more aggressive than the music itself, often sounding like he's trying to yell, and he more sing talks / blurts out phrases than serenades. "WOAH. IT'S RAADAAAYY." Definitely music of this time period...although, 15 years too late in terms of Western music.

Fast Draw sounded exactly how they look like they would sound. They were formed in 1984 and utilize many heavy metal / hair metal techniques in their music, like vocals that sound like the singer is pinching their nose while singing. The song itself is not something I really find enjoyable since 80's metal is not my cup of tea, but "Don't Worry My Son" does have some interesting melodic lines that switch into cool minor keys. If this is the kind of music you're into, you'll like it. Also, apparently only Russian people care about them.

ＵＮＣＨＡＩＮ do not have a picture. They too were a heavy metal band, although I did like this song a lot more than Fast Draw's. I think this change of heart is derived from it sounding a bit more progressive and the vocals were a bit more to my liking. Still not something I really care about looking into any further, but you get what I'm saying. "Power Games" is pretty listenable, but again, not really what I normally look for on my iPod.

Zirety also do not have a picture, but I am pretty sure they did not look like He Man + Thunder Cats. "Shades of Blue" starts off with a beautiful organ melody that then cuts to their "normal" melodic rock sound with a pretty crappy transition. This sounds like a lot of melodic rocks visual-kei bands, like early Penicillin and the like, but with over-the-top and trying really hard vocals (I guess that's like most visual-kei bands?). Their vocalist's singing isn't that bad, he just uses a TON of forced vibrato and throws his voice around like dog playing with a new chew toy. Thus far, this song is one of my favorite songs from this CD. Great guitar atmosphere, strong bass, and a great bass drum pattern that makes the end of a music phrase.

Again, no pictures. This is so good for a visual-kei blog, is it? Anyway, ＡＬＬＩＧＡＴＯＲ is early Free Will punk. Fast paced, kind of really bland vocals singing the same note more or less the same time, and a short song. Pretty much, everything you could ask for in a punk rock song! If this is your thing, you'd dig this. Oh, and the obligatory wailing on your instrument guitar solo is there too.

Yaaay, a picture! ...although, it might be better to not see what most of these bands looked like. Banana fish were also kind of punkish on this CD, although much more mellow and sounded a lot like The Piass with their first vocalist. I'm trying to think of an Arandom Banana piloting the Unicorn Gundam joke to throw in here, but it's not working. Aside from sounding like The Piass' "Never say die," I'm not really sure what else to say about "Swing Out." Oh, there's also a lot of poor English laced throughout the lyrics.

Dizzy Ruck is a stupid name. Sorry. They are also picture less and were some sort of 80's metal conglomerate with a vocalist who sounds highly familiar. Definitely the most tacky song on here since it's a mix of Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" and everything you've ever heard your uncle who loves stale rock listen to. Not impressed.

In case you haven't gotten this ~feeling~ yet, everything on this omnibus is more or less unheard of by anyone who wasn't old enough to be into Japan's metal scene 1993, so all of their last.fm pages are legitimately 10 listeners or less. Ber:sati included. However, unheard of doesn't mean bad. This song kind of sounds like a more 80's early L'arc~en~Ciel to me. Pretty nice melodic progression in the chorus with a soppy / romantic La'Cryma Christi chorus. Decent.

ジョリーピックルス(Jolly Pickles) really took me by surprise. They, too, are early Free Will punk rock, but they're more ska-ish than the Piass. This song is really misleading in comparison to the rest of their discography: it's a rather fast paced song with an ending that puts the Candy Spooky Theater to shame. I'm not sure who said "My Father Die" was correct grammar, but whatever. They're a nice mix between The Piass and Less Than Jake...if that's even conceivable. More surprising, they're still active today. They haven't put out anything since 2000, though, and they don't look like the above picture at all. Their 12 year old music video showed them wearing more normal clothes, but still had their hair died crazy colors...and were fat. So, since it's 12 years later, I'm assuming they're about 46, still playing punk rock, and are even fatter. A lot of their songs are on youtube and I highly recommend them.

I have actually heard of 妖花 before. Or, rather, I've seen them on Evil en Lucifer. I'm not really sure what genre to consider them since they're kind of melodic, but kind of metallic at the same time. "Manipulate" is a pretty good song, and it's selling point is the vocal harmonization in the chorus. Cool outfits, but this song really doesn't drive me to look up more about them.

Completely Subject and Meaningless Ratings:

Variety: 8.8/10

Band Choice: 7/10

Song Choice: 7/10

Bands to look into bonus: +0.5

Average: 81%

Jasmine You Tribute

2012-01-06T10:13:00.001-05:00

My friend made a beautiful tribute to a beautiful person.

konichiwa mina san this is my tribute video to jasmine you from the visual kei band versailles featuring skillrex KILL EVERYONE ^__^

versailles is a visual kei band from japan and is one of the best bands in the world and jasmine is the best bass guitar players in the world ^__^ i found out last year he died from suicide and was so sad that the wold took someone so beautiful T__T it makes me so sad that the world is cruel to kill such a beautiful person i made this tribute video to him. when i found out he died last year i could not stop crying all night and could not eat for days i was so depressed. i made a shrine to jasmine to honor his holy ghost and in prey to him. one day his holy vampire spirit will retun and my vampire king will return to all of us once again

sayonara jasmine

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THIS

JASMINE IS COPYWRITE TO KAMIJO

SKILLREX IS COPYWRITE TO SKILLREX

Favorites of 2011

2012-01-03T17:30:00.002-05:00

Quick! While I have some time away from this PHP project....

Overall, 2011 was kind of a mix of good and alright, with a bit of disappointments. A lot of people like making lists of things they feel are "best" and "worst," once the year draws to a close. I, personally, don't really like lists like this because it takes me a long time to form a true opinion on something: many times I don't love an album till years later, or something I love instantly starts to become not so great. With that being said, there were some things this year that really caught my attention. This isn't going to be a list of "The best and worst of 2011" releases, but just a post about things I feel deserve some attention.

New Comers

Vior Gloire:

Vior Gloire are one of the newest editions to UNDER CODE. They're pretty fluffy and romantic with a bit of a VK sort of hard-core edge due to, or so I'm assuming, their guitarist Kei (who is from Brodiea). If you liked GRiST, then you'll probably like them as well. Shall has a beautiful voice and their music has the potential to show immense levels of maturity. Unforutnately, the Japanese kind of reacted to them with "wwwww iie," so they kind of are suffering from E'm~grief~ syndrome...The Western fans drool over the potential of some news from them, where as the actual Japanese fans could care less about them. Hopefully they release something new soon, because their first single could be the start of something great!

GremlinS:

GremlinS is not a new band: they've been active since 2009. However, they didn't release anything not live-limited till this year, so for all intents and purposes, they're new. They're pretty strange, both musically and image-wise. Their first single is a mixture of old nagoya-kei / circus-y stuff, metal-core, and a hint of black metal in the vocals. Their vocalist actually screams well and sings rather out of tune during the clean vocals. It's like everything I could have ever asked for! Another band whose potential seems to be great, but doesn't look to be doing much of anything. If you like gRAWAAAAGROOOEREOOAF EEEEEE AAAAHHHH ~clean break down~ AAHHHHH kind of songs, be sure to check them out!

Signal:

Signal have become a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. They're very Dir en Grey: growly, screamy, with weird vocal noises that sound like the vocalist is being possessed and somewhat decent pig squeals. People are already comparing their vocalist to Kyo, but I personally don't think he sounds like him aside from an obvious technique emulation. He does have kind of nice clean voice, unlike Kyo, but it sounds like he always has something stuck in his throat. Anyway, Signal are much more metal-core orientated than Diru are (I think? I kind of only listen to them up till 2002), and even managed to write an August Burns Red-esque breakdown on their first single. They're quickly becoming quite popular amongst the vk-indie lovers, and are releasing their first mini-album soon.

Suzaku:

Another one of UNDER CODE's newest bands, Suzaku are crazy! Their first single is a mixture of heavy synth rock with insane and fun vocals. They've already lost 2 members and kind of went on a mini hiatus because of it, but towards the end of the year they returned with new people to fill their spot. If that were cool enough, their looks are definitely different as well! I hope that they stay strong and keep up the good work! Originally I thought I was going to hate their music, but after listening to their single, I actually truly enjoyed them.

New Releases

NightengeiL - Dark Word:

I started to take a liking to La'mule this year, so I decided to try out NightengeiL's newest release (same vocalist). Turns out that they're actually kind of similar and still good at writing music. Dark Word has a very strong title track and contains a ton of diversity for just 3 tracks. Definitely worth checking out!

Lynch. - I believe in Me:

Lynch.'s first album was very good, as I've already written about. It was a nice album, filled with some great metal-core tunes and was just enjoyable to sit and listen to. I'd say it's a nice start to try out this band if you haven't already. The single that followed, Mirrors, is also very good!

Xa-vat: 艶℃

Xa-Vat's first album is amazing, and probably my favorite album of the year. Lovely new-wave (?) album that sounds like 80's music to me, and is fun and addicting. They haven't been doing much since that album due to Cali=gari's revival, but I'm hoping they release something new soon.

己龍 - 叫声

The Kiryu put out a ton of shit this year: 2 multi-type singles, and a full album. Their album was very good, but it suffered from the same problem that their first one had--too many re-recordings and like only 6 new songs on it. Their first single after this had an amazing song on it, but the title track was kind of...awful. Well, it wasn't THAT bad, but it was pretty much just outbursts of "emotion" for 5 minutes. This single is much more balanced: a couple of great, quirky, rock songs, less neo-traditional stuff, and amazing album art. Thankfully they haven't announced a new release for a while, so hopefully they're getting some rest!

Songs

Versailles - Vampire: A lot of people hated "Holy Grail." I agree that it's not their best work by far, but I'm not being such a drama queen about it either. "Masquerade" is an absolutely amazing song, but I feel like "Vampire" could use a lot more attention. I love the use of harpsichord as well as main guitar riff. It's not really a metal song, but I really do enjoy listening to it.

己龍 - 柘榴 : a b-side to the Kiryu's first single of the year. I didn't really think much of it at first, but after listening to it a few times, I really fell in love with that chorus. One of my favorite songs of the year and one of my favorite Kiryu songs, along with Sakurami.

Moi Dix Mois - Seventh Veil: Alright, not from 2011, but the album came out like a week before 2011 so I'm counting it. Their latest album had quite an improvement in musicianship, but most fans couldn't realize that because they're too busy complaining about Juka not coming back. This song has a lot of good things that I like about MDM: fake gawfy-ness, surprisingly good guitar parts, a lovely chorus, and it makes for a fantastic overture to this album. This song is pretty addicting too: perfect for any fan whose not stuck in 2004.

Megaromania - Phantom to the Past: originally a live-distributed song, Phantom to the Past is another sort of symphonic metal song from Mega that still manages to retain a bit of a playful, girly flavor that they're trying oh so hard to lose as of late. I was so happy to find out that they were going to put this song on their mini-album since it's one of the best ones they've released in a while.

UNDER CODE EnTicket Sales

2011-12-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

Every year, UNDER CODE PRODUCTION holds a special New Year's live. This year, tickets are being sold online for foreign fans to view the concert online! They're a little on the expensive side (around $20), but it's a 10 hour stream. I have my own ticket, courtesy of weloveucp.com , and plan on watching some of the shows myself! Pretty cool that we get the chance to actually see one of those special concerts instead of just hearing about them.

But here's the catch: EnTicket wants to sell all 50 available tickets by December 24th, otherwise the stream is a no-go. Currently they are half-way through selling all of their tickets, but they're in need of a bit more support. The website to buy tickets is in Japanese, but inartistic wrote a guide for how to buy tickets in case you don't speak moon runes here.

The bands that will be shown at the concert are as follows:

NEGA
Megaromania
Dali
FUTURISM・BOYZ
シンディケイト (CindyKate)
REALies
朱 (SUZAKU)
Cu[be]
Vior gloire
凛 -the end of corruption world- (LIN)
アイドル (IDOL)
V. CO-, V. 苓 (Ren), G. ケエト (KEETO), G. MIZUKI, D. 俊 (Shun)
NEGA エンタープライゼス (NEGA ENTERPRISES)
V. 儿 (JIN), G. SAN, G. ユキヒロ (YUKIHIRO), B. Ray, D. 優 (Yu)
罪団法人黒十字2011
V. RIKU, V. 苓 (Ren), G. ケエト (KEETO), B. ユウ (YUU), D. 旬奈 (Shunna)
Large session

Ballad

2011-12-16T16:22:00.001-05:00

Status: Disbanded (2009~2011)

Genre: Rock

Style: Visual-kei
OHP

Ballad, written as "バラッド," by the band, were a very small visual indies band on the Livquer record label. Most people will probably consider them to be dismissible indies crap, which they were for the most part, but something about them kept me interested in their music. What probably did it for me the most was that the picture above vaguely reminded me of Metis Gretel from the hair colors. Their music sounds nothing like them and バラッド looks absolutely nothing like them, but that small association got me to try them out. To be honest, they're much more similar to Nega, with a very small bit of Mar'derayla, than Metis Gretel, especially since their vocalist sounds like almost exactly like 儿 with less "I'm having a seizure" tongue spasms. Like most bands of this nature, バラッド did not release all that much material: 2 singles, 1 song on an omnibus, and one untitled live-distributed song. They disbanded towards the end of 2011 when their bassist decided he was going to leave the band.

[[Members]]

Vocals: Riku

Guitar: Luca

Guitar: Kiyo

Drums: Showta

Ex-Bass: Saki

[[Discography]]

色彩モノクロ [Single] (11/13/2010)

01. THE END

02. 堕落と切望

03. 錯乱恋情

Arc Presents STAND UP SONIC [Omnibus] (01/26/2011)

04. 堕落と切望

Bullet to Flap Vol. 2 [Live-Distributed] (??/??/2011?)

01. タイトル募集 (This song doesn't have a title, but I have it tagged as this)

Domestic Color [Single] (08/31/2011)

01. Cradle

02. 白蓮‐hakuren‐

03. Cruel.

[[Notable Tracks]]

I honestly don't remember where I first found out about them. I think it was looking at some picture related to the STAND UP SONIC release, thus making me curious about trying out. It could have also been that I listened to them on that CD and then looked into them a bit further. Both versions of the song "堕落と切望" are exactly the same, so I won't bother talking about the omnibus.

As a whole, 色彩モノクロis a pretty decent starter single. It starts off with an electronic and piano instrumental, "THE END." Really nothing special here: just a sort of Luzmelt-esque instrumental CD filler that goes on for a bit too long. Seriously, 3 minutes of the same piano phrase over and over again can get a bit boring even if it does have a rather nice atmosphere to it. The song that follows, "堕落と切望," is what the band is actually like.

"堕落と切望" starts off with a rather Westernized sound, similar to a lot of hard rock I've heard. However, shortly after there is cheap synth added to it and it kind of ruins the Western atmosphere. While the synth is being added, the potentially amazing music gradually begins to decay into visual-kei normalcy. Thankfully some of the original spark is retained while the song gets off the ground, but the opening line is very misleading. To start, the vocals are semi-distorted. Once the chorus hits, Riku belts it out without any electronic help in a range that's just a bit out of his comfort range. This is where I start to feel like he sounds a lot like Nega's guy, except I kind of like how it sounds here. After the first chorus is a strange 6/8 over 4/4 time signature break down, followed by a change in tune to a completely different melodic pattern, then another melody change to the rush-song-esque section with growled "oi"'s that reared it's head just a few moments ago. Although this song is alright, there is a clear problem on inconsistency. This song has at least 4 different themes to it that don't really blend well, making it an awkward tapestry of seemingly good and seemingly play it safe ideas. I do give them credit for trying though: the effort of wanting to be progressive is apparent and that's a lot more than most bands these days put in.

"錯乱恋情" has a faster tempo than "堕落と切望," as well as a much more focused melody. It can be characterized by it's heavy use of "Ai yai yai yai"'s in between each major lyrical line for most of the verses. Unlike the prior song, there isn't any vocal distortion in this song, so Riku's voice is as clear as it's going to get. While this is trying to be the band's up-beat and fun song, that attempt gets kind of lost. It could be that the tempo isn't fast enough, and it could be the random sections of growling and uninteresting drumming. As I'm probably indirectly implying, track two of this single shows that this band had some potential while track three really wasn't worth paying that much attention to unless you absolutely love what you've heard so far.

Just like their first single, Domestic Color starts off with an instrumental song "Cradle." This has a similar atmosphere to the first song, just with a lot of fake and twangy bass instead of an ambient bass line.

When I first heard the samples for Domestic Color, they were pretty grim. However, it actually didn't end up being that bad. The first real song, "白蓮‐hakuren‐" has a very nice flow to it: a playful melody, synth harpsichord that compliments the song instead of detracts from it, and less melody fluctuation. There are still growly screamy breakdowns that seem out of place, but the nice guitar solo that follows overshadows it. Sometimes the vocals have way too much forced vibrato, but that's what's to love about VK! I apologize for not having much to say about this song other than it has a playful and kind of catchy melody, but I would like to point out that there is a drastic improvement in this single.

"Cruel.," as the name would imply, is the heavier of the two songs. It's not actually heavy, but there is a lot more drum filler than the first song, which yields ""heavy."" The first vocal line in this song is kind of whisper with radio friendly alt-rock soft guitar. Once again, there are awful growls here and there and kind of a weak chorus. I cannot decide if the goodness of the verses can cancel out the not goodness of the chorus, so it's kind of a battle of good and evil gushing into your ears. Still better than their first single, but far from streamably good.

If I remember correctly, I think I liked their untitled song the best out of all of their releases. What's different about it is that it has a kind of jazzy visual-kei main guitar riff and that Riku's vocals work really well with the exposed parts, as well as a much nicer chorus. Unlike some of their other songs, this song's chorus is repeated twice, making it a very nice length, and it has a very mature melody to it to show that they have had some improvement in their composing ability. The random growled breakdowns return again, but it is quickly smothered by another chorus. This is definitely their strongest song, but for some reason they didn't release it again before they broke up.

All in all, バラッド were a guilty pleasure. They're far from being the VK band of the year and I wouldn't really recommend them to anyone unless I know they're really into current visual indies bands. They did have a few glimmers of hope here and there, but they ended it before those could go anywhere.

[[Costumes]]

Rather typical visual-kei costumes of today, except they actually used brightly colored hair instead of naturally colored ones. I can't really tell what they look like from below the shoulders, so there's not much to talk about aside from their choice of hair color. Shame they couldn't be around for longer and broaden their costume selection.

Still Alive

2011-12-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

Sorry for neglecting here as of late: I've recently started a new quarter at school and even though I'm only taking 12 credits, I do have a lot of work to be doing. My last.fm has been kind of dead as well because I've been busy doing other things like homework...and going on dates...and mostly playing Final Fantasy 13. I'm currently on chapter 11 and kind of want to try doing all 64 of the Cei'th stone missions, so it doesn't look like I'll be done with that game for a while. I won't have my PS3 with me for Christmas break (I leave Thursday), so I ~should~ have time for writing then, along with school work and updating my portfolio. Here's what I have to write about:

-Duel Jewel's Luminous
-己龍 - 叫声
- lynch. - Mirrors
-La'Mule

We'll see how much I can get done. I always plan on writing a lot of breaks and never get around to doing it. I do have a long break this year, so maybe I'll actually be able to do it. Oh, and it just started to get cold here. I hate the winter...

Lynch. - I Believe in Me

2011-11-20T17:15:00.001-05:00

As I think I stated in my original lynch. post, these guys were signed to a major label at the beginning of the year (or earlier? I don't really follow them that avidly) and released their first major single Judgement. In June, they released their first major album: I Believe in Me. Interesting how they went from titles like "A Grateful Shit," "Shadows," and "Greedy Dead Souls" to a you-can-do-it styled nomenclature. Their style of music more or less stayed the same, however. Well, there was less variety in comparison to what little I remember from Shadows, but they still had a typical hard rock, with a bit of metal-core sprinkled in, music that many people enjoy. Just a note though: I'm not going to be doing a track-by track thing with this: while I did enjoy listening to it, I only really listen to it casually and didn't pick apart each track. For this style of music, I find that it defeats all the enjoyment I get out of it and much rather listen to it for fun, rather than super analytic listening (that I do for crappy indie bands that no one ever cared about... /hypocrite?) .

I Believe In Me [Album] (05/11/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. INTRODUCTION

02. UNTIL I DIE

03. I BELIEVE IN ME

04. JUDGEMENT

05. LIE

06. -273.15℃

07. THIS COMA

08. SCARLET

09. ALL THIS I'LL GIVE YOU

10. TIAMAT

11. BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

12. A GLEAM IN EYE

As I said, I really only listen to this album casually when I'm in the mood for lynch. . It really flows well and all of the tracks are similar enough that if you like one, you'll like the rest, but different enough to be able to tell when you're on a new song. I'll break the album down into different parts so you can decide which aspects to skip or listen to first.

There are a few slower songs on here. For example, "BEFORE YOU KNOW IT" has a lot of 9goats Black Out vibes, if you're into that. "This Coma" is more of a mid-tempo visual-kei song, mixed with radio friendly 80's pop rock elements. Aside from these two songs, the rest of the album is more of lynch.'s uptempo stuff.

With that being said, this album did bring a variety of songs of that nature to their discography. For example, "SCARLET" contains a lot of musical elements that lynch. has done so many times before, but mixed with them predominantly clean vocals and gave it a nice chorus in English, making it stand out a bit. Actually, out of all of the new songs here, this one gets stuck in my head the most. Other heavier songs include "-273.15℃," which is the album's rush song mixed with some jazzy influences hidden beneath all of the growling, and "TIAMAT": a heavier song that's probably the most metal-core thing they've ever done.

As for their singles, "JUDGEMENT," and "ALL THIS I'LL GIVE YOU" remain unchanged, but "A GLEAM IN EYE," has a different breakdown and middle passage. New songs "UNTIL I DIE" and "I BELIEVE IN ME" are within that same realm of music, so if you liked the singles then you'll like those tracks as well. Here's the promotional video:

Overall, I found this to be a really strong album. It's easy for me to listen and I found most of it to be very enjoyable. I actually bought the limited edition version of this album because it was the same exact price as the regular edition and boy, was I impressed. The packaging is beautiful! Glossy and reflective tinting, interesting book-like set up instead of a typical jewel casing, and even a protective box to put it in. Well worth the purchase, both aesthetically and musically. It really does mean a lot when there is some extra effort put into packaging, but most people find that irrelevant because they're self-entitled and feel all music should be downloaded and real money should be spent on other things, like faster computers to run their torrent clients.

[[New Costumes]]

Lynch. are rapidly leaving the visual-kei scene. Their current look is barely visual-kei at all (it's different from the one at the top of this article) except for the fact that Hizuki looks like he's trying to emulate Kiyoharu. That's probably why they are now signed to a major record label that isn't associated with the visual-kei scene (like PSC or something to that extent) and why their music is pretty different from normal visual-kei bands. Unfortunately, you can't call them "non-visual" just yet: they're still heavily associated with the scene and tour with bands who are VK. Welcome to the magical world of logistics~~~~~~. I'd say by the time their next album drops, it'll be common practice to not consider them visual anymore.

Rin-The End of Corruption World- : Independent "MAZE" + Bonus Singles + Ambient Cosmo

2011-11-14T20:09:00.001-05:00

Rin has been both a mix of hyper activity and non-activity all at once as of late. How does that make any sense? Well, for one, they released 5 singles within 1 and 1/2 years. Sure, there were omnibus tracks and whatnot, but the quality of a lot of their songs for the amount of time it took them to release a new CD was severely imbalanced. For example, it was annoucened that the band would form in January of 2010, released their first "webshop only" single in April, their first maxi-single in June, their second maxi-single in November, and then their 3rd and 4th maxi singles in the following March and May. That's a total of 12 songs being "official" releases (for whatever reason, their website never lists omnibuses and live releases). Sure, that's like half of what Phantasmagoria put out in about 1/4th the amount of time, but at least Mago kept re-releasing stuff over and over in new versions to make themselves look like they're super active. Rin, however, would spend months at a time doing seemingly nothing. Until...

The summer of this past year the band released their first full-length album. This is pretty monumental. When was the last time a Kisaki band released a full-length that wasn't a collection album? Well, he released um...that one- wait, no, that was a compilation too. There was Requi-...no. Syndrome had a lot of...mini-albums, Mirage had 2, Kisaki project had 2 compilation albums, Phantasmagoria was like 90% compilation releases, and everything before Mirage didn't last long enough to think about putting out more than 8 songs. So, in case I am not making myself clear, full albums with Kisaki don't happen.

To make things even cooler and more surprising, each type of the album came with a bonus CD containing 2 new tracks (sorry, 2 different bonus cds). This meant that the 4 single songs were made up for by adding in 2 extra songs, making the album have a total of 10 new songs.

In addition to this new album, Rin also released a live-distributed single entitled "Ambient Cosmo." Cool beans, right? Well, they also went on hiatus. Fans have a mixed view on why this has happened: it seems to be that Kisaki is a bit frustrated at the fact that people aren't liking this band as much as Phantasmagoria. I'm not sure how long the hiatus will last, but at least Kisaki will be busy. Turns out he's reviving his Kisaki project and replacing Jui with Satsuki (of Rentrer en Soi, now in his own lame solo project). Pretty cool, no?

Independent "MAZE" [Album] (08/31/2011)

01. Cold Sabbath

02. From the End...

03. Silent to My Pain

04. Royal Blood

05. Metamorphose

06. As if Forever Exists.

07. Continuation of Dream

08. Mind Confusion

09. Flowers Bloom

10. World in Flames

「Paranoia Disturb」

01. Fall...

02. A. Hitlor.

「Ashes Melodies」

01. Replicant Blue

02. The Ins and Outs

Ambient Cosmo [Live-Distributed Single] (10/02/2011)

01. Ambient Cosmo

My first reaction to this album was a positive one. Some people who didn't listen to this band started to try them with this release, but many said it was just boring. To be honest, if you didn't like Rin before this, you're probably not going to be a huge fan of them just by listening to this album. It does provide a lot more variety than their singles did, but it's mixture of Phantasmagoria and pseudo-90's-vk-melodic rock are not for everyone.

With that being said, it is by no means a perfect album. Strong points: yes. Weak points: of course. Fore example, the first track, "Cold Sabbath," is a 3 minute long instrumental rush song...if that makes sense. Think of Mago's echoing Gregorian chants mixed with church bells and pipe organs, along with song synth and gang vocals. That's pretty much what it is for about three or so minutes. However, it is a good setup for "From the End...," just a bit too long.

"From the End..." uses a guest female singer and continues with the church bell motif at first, but the actual song is much more Phantasmagoria based than their discography has been thus far. Take the main guitar riff for example: I would say that it could have been used in a less lame post 3rd break-up release. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a Varient Jihad 2.0 or anything: there are still a lot of elements in this song that are very "Rin," like the kind of punk element they like to do for just about everything. Thankfully, though, that weakness is covered up by a lot of strong new elements, like a gorgeous chorus melody. The vocals in most of the song are either sing-talked or gang vocaled with a ton of effects thrown on top. However, the chorus uses fantastic harmonizing and layering of several voices; in combination with a mellifluous progression, this makes for a phenomenal melody. There is a brief guitar solo-like section after the first instance of the chorus, ending with a section of almost a capella vocals and piano in a very ethereal fashion. Overall, "From the End..." is one of Rin's strongest songs in my opinion. It mixes their attempt at being exuberant (although often misplaced) with beauty and grace: definitely a rare treat from this band.

I'll kill a lot of birds with this one stone: if you've listened to the singles of this album before listening to this CD, you can skip tracks 3, 5, 6, and 9. They're direct copy-pastas with no editing or rearranging or anything to make them sound in the slightest bit different.

"Royal Blood" is alright. I don't hate it, nor do I love it. Kind of an up-beat song in a more generic Jrock circa 2009 fashion but with more synth orchestra parts. One of the better songs on this album, though.

Next up is "Continuation of Dream." A ton of people flipped at shit about this song because it's similar to most VK fake jazz. Truthfully, I hate vk fake jazz a whole lot more than I dislike real jazz, but there's some stuff in this song that I actually really like. First off, I don't believe that this is actually jazz so much as it is lounge or something else that probably has a name that I don't know. Why do I like this song then? 2 reasons: out of no where experimentation and the synth and piano parts sound like an ultra classy video game menu theme. Think Gran Turismo 5 and how high-style everything about that game (except the levels themselves!!!!!!) is. Suddenly, this song doesn't sound half bad. Not a favorite, but I give them props for it.

If I recall correctly, a lot of people liked "Mind Confusion." It starts off with some pretty cool guitar riffs and a typical ~we're chill~ drum filler before morphing into a typical Rin song. Listening to it again, it sounds a lot like the songs I absolutely try my hardest to ignore by this band ("Foolish," "GASP FOR BREATH," "Freedom," etc). Nothing all that new here.

"World in Flames," however, is pretty different. It has the same aura as "Imaginary Lover," (another favorite of mine) and is on the slower side. It's the non-single ballad of the album, so I don't listen to it all that often, but listening to it as I'm writing this is kind of relaxing. It mixes layers of different vocals, both male and female, together, as well as gives Riku's voice a nice echoing effect. The church bells return, as well as audible bass. If you prefer slower songs then you'll probably dig this one. It doesn't sound like anything the name of the song would imply, but I guess that's alright.

Now for the bonus cds.

「Ashes Melodies」 is the milder of the two bonus cds, by far. Take the first track, "Replicant Blue." It starts off with Kisaki Project quality synth violin and then turns into a modern Girugamesh pop rock ballad mixed with major era Vidoll. Terrible combinations? Ehh, they're alright, but you probably don't find that description to be overly thrilling, but that's pretty much how I feel about this song. The melody is nice, as is the orchestra, and the music itself is very clean and straightforward, but it's lacking some sort of spark needed to make it sound great. I don't really have much more to say about this song, to be honest. I guess listen to it yourself and form your own opinion, but mine is that it wasn't featured on the album for a reason.

"The ins and outs" is much better than this cd's prior track. It's more inline with the music Rin has traditionally been making: regular old visual kei rock with some synth and piano thrown in. It does suffer from awkward, trying to be hard core, drumming: specifically when the vocals start, but it evens out later on. Interestingly enough, Riku's voice gets distorted and doubled to sound like a chorus of himself singing much higher than his normal range would permit, even if it does sound a bit reminiscent of しゅ～ふるまぁ～じゅ's style of music. The guitar solo of this song starts off as an acoustic guitar one, making it a nice change from their typical obligatory guitar solo pattern. At the end of the day, "The ins and outs" is an alright song: better than "Replicant Blue," but not something I consider to be their best work.

「Paranoia Disturb」 was a much more satisfying bonus CD for me, mostly because it was "heavier," and by heavier I mean more punk-ish, if that's what you'd call it. The first song is "Fall...," the song that was supposed to be released like 6 times already. It starts off rather epically and kind of sounds a bit like something Phantasmagoria would do up until the vocals come in. From then on it sounds like a regular Rin song, particularly an early B-side. However, the chorus of this song is better than those of "Freedom" or "Sterilize": it's kind of sing-talked, but it has a very perturbed vibe to it. After the 2nd chorus there is a minor bass solo / guitar melody deterioration, then a really cool distorted mumbling session. I really like how that sounds: Riku's voice is faded and edited to sound like he's on the phone, so there's a flashback-to-when-I-was-innocent-in-this-situation feel to the music at this point. After that the song pretty much turns into a screaming fest. For a lot of this section, the guitar parts are a typical visual-kei punk riff: dun dugga da dun dugga da dun dugga da dun [x2] , etc. The rest of the song is more or less the same as the beginning parts. "Fall..." is pretty cool, but again, not the best of Rin. I do have a special liking for it, though.

The last song on 「Paranoia Disturb」 is "A. Hitlor." Yep. Before you get all up in a knot, take a look at my naziploitation article and then continue reading~ . Now that you've read it, you can sigh and look disappointed along with me. Neo Nazi themes don't really fly well unless they're pseudo (like making the symbol an X, or wearing uniforms that look ~like~ SS uniforms, but not exactly the same) , mostly because the old shock value has transformed from "WOOOWW!!!!!! SCARY!!!" to "You kind of look like an asshole." And that's the irony: there's no visual appeal at all. All of the ~imagery~ is never actually stated-- just implied. This song played out how I assumed it would: a kind of attempt at remaking D'espairsRay's "Fascism," mixed with Riku still being allowed to write lyrics. Yep. Half-assed sort of punk, gang vocals, yelling, and spelling errors. But wait, in the song they actually spell. H-I-T-L-E-R. Ohh, well that make sense for a song called "A. Hitl****o****r." Someone should have checked their spelling, or at least made the same spelling mistake twice. All ridiculousness aside, the song isn't that bad. Nice melody and I bet it makes for a pretty nice rush song live, but I'm going to be real. They're not edgy. I've seen a lot of European people get offended about this song, so I guess you can look for where that's happened yourself if you're in need of some good lulz.

And onto the infamous "Ambient Cosmo."

This song was a live distributed released, put out to attract people to their later lives before going on hiatus. I kind of wished that it would have been a nice song like "Feeling Universe 2.0," but it wasn't. It's actually kind of like all of their songs I don't really like by them mixed together, just with more auto-tune and cooler synth. It starts off with a nice guitar riff before developing into a hyper syncopated synth rock song reminiscent of "Fall..." but with a prettier chorus. After a few listens, I was neutral on this song. I can't find the hook, but I can't find anything to outright complain about either. Sure, it's not as good as I was expecting, but it's not as bad I had hoped it would have been on the chance that I didn't like it. I'd also like to point out how gorgeous the cover art is though. Love that photoshoping!

[[New Costumes]]

Their latest costumes are a nice change, but I'm not sure how I feel about them. Red and white is a much needed relief from their mix and match 3rd costume set, but there could have been more unison in my opinion. Thankfully Mizuki lost the poker hat in the redesigned versions of the costume set. I think this might have been Alice in Wonderland influenced, since they look a bit like playing cards. That does tie in with the maze theme their album had, but it's a loose association.

Maria Cross

2011-10-31T23:00:00.000-04:00

Status: Active

Genre: Visual-kei Masterworks

Style: Flawless

Alternate Names: マリア, マリア様, クロス

OHP

Maria†Cross is a god among men, flawlessly enrapturing a multitude of plebeian hearts with his soulful, otherworldly, and divine music. This man has more talent than he does hair colors, creating music on his own that speaks directly to one's heart and penis. Although he is primarily a street performer, he has released several CDs and goes by several "stage" names. Being a man of the streets himself, Maria prefers to play on the corner and draw crowds of real people, not a bunch of shallow false fans. Only the truly dedicated follow him around and gaze at his curb-side, battery powered boombox + microphone spectacles. Consider yourself more than fortunate if you ever get the chance to see this man ejaculate perfection all over the street: he is literally one of a kind.

Fuck that bitch who also uses the name マリア on lastfm. She's a talentless shell of a human being who will never compare to the REAL >>>>>ONE I LIKE<<<<< Maria.

Now, with that out of the way, let me tell you a bit about †Queen Maria†. For starters, he's done porn. Gay porn....THAT I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO SO DON'T ASK ME YOU SICK FREAK. However, I've read that he actually has a family somewhere, so he's straight. His heterosexuality is also confirmed by a close-call with an under aged fan, which leads me to his next fun fact: † has been to jail! Him being a lolihunter is all hearsay, he-said-she-said, anti-fan, Tea Party propaganda. Whoever the girl was was probably just mad.

Another fun fact: Maria survived in jail! He's has recently returned to his street performances, gracing Japan's urban utopias with his presence.

[[Discography]]

For you [Single]

01. 神曲「For you」

02. 性欲願望

03. 星の砂

Shinkyoku [Toge Kusuri Uta] [Single]

01. Shinkyoku [Toge Kusuri Uta]

02. S・E・X

Untitled Single

01. 雪月花

02. 失われし旋律

クロス [Single]

01. Winter Love Song

フィリス [Single]

01. フィリス

02. 鉄

蘇生 [Single]

01. 華

02. 桜舞い散るこの校舎

[[Notable Tracks]]

All of them. ALL OF THEM. I cannot emphasize how phenomenal everything this man has every put out is. I know, some of the singles listed here were actually from his other band クロス, but that's just him with some other, not rainbow, guy playing guitar: but they're just as brilliant.

From how he growls, to how he screams, to how he sings like a dying cat, Maria just jerks the listener's heart strings with raw passion. Little known fact, he's also a lyrical genius. Here's a sample:

S・E・X
S・E・X
S・E・X
ASOKO wo
S・E・X
S・E・X
S・E・X
Awasero

SEX (x16)

S・E・X
S・E・X
S・E・X
Nurashite
S・E・X
S・E・X
S・E・X

Irero
Kimi wo okashitai okashitai
Akadama ga deru made
Kimi wo okashitai okashitai
PILL nomase
Risei wo ushinau hodo ni anata no subete ni obore
Shime tsukeru kaikan ni tokete tokete kowareru

SEX (x16)

Kimi wo okashitai okashitai
Akadama ga deru made
Kimi wo okashitai okashitai
Tainai ni*
Risei wo ushinau hodo ni anata no subete ni obore
Shime tsukeru kaikan ni tokete tokete kowareru

I cannot believe how......I can't. I am crying. Seriously guys, Maria is beyond perfect. Here's some more:

And more.

Four fingers IS NOT a lot.MORE.

As you can see, everything he does his better than whatever you do in your piece of shit life. Even his slow songs, like "雪月花" make me bawl from my eyes and scrotum. I have never heard anything with absolutely every note out of tune be so beautiful ;o;

[[Costumes]]

Does this look like a costume to you? No, because he's 100% real.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!~

Some Updates

2011-10-18T13:21:00.000-04:00

Just made The Piass' discography more complete: part of an effort to clean up some misinformation and my own naïve mistakes. I'm also going to start making a dead article header. This means that the topic is about a band who I've lost interest in or didn't really follow all that closely but decided to write about them since I was low on material. Well, take care!

Dir En Grey - My Thoughts and Other Mental Purges

2011-10-16T15:45:00.002-04:00

Dir en Grey is probably the absolute most famous visual-kei band in existence. Funny enough, they're not even visual-kei anymore and it seems like they want absolutely nothing to do with the scene at all. There are a lot of bands that influence other groups in visual-kei: in fact, it's at the point where a lot of people don't even bother listening to that style of music because of how few bands have a good deal of creative integrity. These bands include proto-vk bands like X (often credited with creating the scene all together), Penicillin, Kuroyume, Baiser (to an extent), and many other band who've had a small influence in the late 90's. However, that pretty much holds true up until 2002 or so. Anyone with ears is able to tell that after that the style of visual-kei, both in terms of imagery and music, changed dramatically. Although Penicillin and Kuroyume were also influences, no other band has had a bigger impact on modern visual-kei than Dir en Grey.

Why am I writing this? To be honest, I'm not really a fan of them. I think Kyo's voice can be highly displeasing and I'm not a fan of Nu-metal or whatever they were from their later music videos, plus their fans are absolutely bat-shit crazy. Where as fans of Velvet Eden are the kind of people who would kill Dada and wear his skin to their birthday party, Dir en Grey fans are worse and they come in hoards of dozens at a time. I'm not saying all of their fans are bad people: just most of them. Horrible, horrible people at that. Because of their later music videos (when I tried them for the first time it was in 2007 or so) and their fans, I literally rejected everything about them save one song that a dear friend introduced to me. Their music videos grossed me out, their music wasn't all that great to me, and it was just something I did not want to be a part of at all costs.

Then I became active in the vk community, and all of my fears of this band were further amplified. Gradually I just started disliking them more for the sake of disliking them to not be proven wrong. I'm human: I do shallow things just like everyone else. In my defense, though, Dir en Grey does have a ton of zealous fans that are very akin to driving people away from taking this band seriously, so it's not 100% my ignorance.

What this post is boiling down to is an explanation of why I'm going to be trying Dir en Grey out. I don't hate all of their songs and I know they'll have more songs I'll love than just "I'll." So I guess you can say that I'm taking this journey to experience what they've done and how it's affected the rest of the scene. What started this? Someone on Monochrome Heaven made a thread asking when they stopped being visual-kei. Zesshoku replied with a beautiful argument with pictures of their older costumes. Let me tell you, some of them are pretty awesome, but others gave me the reaction of "Oh...they look like ~rambles off a list of 10 or so bands~." Then I thought, "maybe they really are more of a big deal than I've been playing down for all of these years." Here's some of the examples posted:

Love this. Lots of old-school goodness and androgony going on, just how I like it. Unfortunately, most of their modern fans forget that they did, at one point, look like this.

This might have been their look for "I'll," but I'm not 100% sure. Looks pretty cool to me, but this is where my cries of "so and so looks like them" and "they kind of look like...." begin. For one, I know that Kiyoharu (Kuroyume's vocalist) started that whole black tear of makeup thing and that early Dir en Grey was very influenced by that band. Also, one of Ru:natic's looks a lot like the one with red hair ( I think Die) at the moment: both because of the hair and because of the mask and suit get-up. Actually, the more I listen to Dir en Grey and La:Sadie's (which I loved by the way), the more I know what Ru:Natic was trying to accomplish.

This look is from their "Filthy" PV, as Arithemetica introduced to me. The song wasn't that great to me and this look is pretty ridiculous, but even so I can think of bands influenced from this. For example, Megaromania's Prophetic Faction-The Universe- costume set: Chikage looks and awful lot like Kyo to me. Not sure what's up with Whitney Houston and Charo on the right, there.

And then there was this. This is like all of modern VK at once. I think those influenced by here are fairly obvious.

So, I shall start listening through their discography and see what I think. I am predicting that I am only going to really enjoy up until 2002 or so since that's the style of music I prefer the most, but who knows. This far I have listened through La:Sadie's and their first mini album Missa and really enjoyed them. However, I'm not getting any "OHMYGOD MY LIFE IS FOREVER CHANGED" vibes from them. Maybe I'm expecting too much based on other's actions, but we'll see. I've also taken a look at some of their PVs and here's my preliminary thoughts:

I'll- prefect. Love the flow, the melody, the out of tune vocals, and just about everything about it. This song is the one a friend introduced to me and I've liked it ever since. However, as Herpes had pointed out to me, it sounds a lot like D≒SIRE due to the fact that their vocalist was Diru's producer.

Another old song: it was covered on a 90's v.a. cover album recently and a lot of people thought Merry did an alright job. To be honest, this song just sounds like Due Le Quartz's "卍搦め" to me.

A song introduced to me by Herpes before DSS was released. My first listen to this I liked it a lot, but listening to this again today it sounded kind of bland to me. Again, it sounds like an edgier version of D≒SIRE with a significantly worse vocalist.

脈 (Myaku) : a song introduced to me by Arithmetica. I kind of liked the song, but the video was pretty silly. The girl eats people and cuts her hair to look VK. Sounds pretty similar to like everything by every no name VK band, so I'm starting to see where the influence is coming from.

I still have like...all of their disco to listen through and, to be honest, I'm nervous about doing this. I don't want to be proven wrong is the thing, but it's better to experience something and then form an opinion than to have an opinion based on just wanting to disagree with the masses.

The Kiryu: Kisai

2011-10-11T18:42:00.000-04:00

The Kiryu have not so recently released another maxi-single, their 6th one in fact, and are still going strong with their rapid release late. Actually, they have another new single coming out very soon, called "Kyousei," and I will have a CDJapan link to preoder it on the side bar very soon. Since they were signed to B.P. Records, it seems like this band is going to keep going until they literally burn out. I looked through their first album's booklet over the summer and noticed that only one of the members predominately writes their music, at least that was the case for that album, so I wonder where he gets all of this inspiration from. I don't remember which member it was (mostly because they use obnoxious kanji for their names and it's hard to remember who is who), but I have a feeling that it might be their red haired guitarist. Anyway, Kisai is their latest edition to their ever expanding discography.

鬼祭 [Maxi-Single] (07/06/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. 鬼祭

02. 柘榴

03. 花火

hurrrr blogspot's layout stuff is stupid and never works ever . Anyway, as you can see, the single came in 3 times: one with a DVD, and two with a different B-side I believe. I don't remember which is which though....so if it's a huge deal to you, then I suggest you crank up your favorite search engine and figure it out yourself. ◕‿◕✿

"鬼祭," like just about every release of theirs since Tsuki no Hime, came with a PV preview, giving fans a chance to hear what a short sampling of what the song will sound like. Well, based off of that, a lot of people thought it was going to be a terrible single, where as other people rejoiced from their j-indie comfort zones that this song would have a lot of growling. My original opinion was that there was way too much growling to even tell what the hell was going on in the song, but I tried it out anyway. Note, I didn't dismiss this band because I didn't like one release: Versailles fans should emulate such actions~~~~ . This song kind of strays down the same road that a lot of their darker songs take: eerie guitar riffs mixed with brooding synthesizer / thunder / crunching inserts. While "鬼祭" does have a bit of their normal neo-traditional flair, the instrumental keyboard parts do stray a bit from the ancient Japanese instruments and instead focus more on piano, strings, and other electronic based tones. The vocals in this song are what ruined this song for a lot of people. After the lack luster chorus there is a whole section of Mashiro just going "RAAAAAAA WrAAAHHHH WRAAAAAAHHHHKROUUUU" at the top of his lungs, before growling a different section of the song. While I don't mind his growls, I feel that they don't help this song at all. The melody of it isn't even that great (both the chorus and the verses), but the fact that he just makes perturbed badger noises for most of the song doesn't make for a hit single. In the song's defense, though, the keyboard part is very nice and is a great change from the sameness I feel they have been getting stuck in since their first album. In addition, the growls are on par with Madeth Gray'll in terms of outbursts of emotion, but they could have been excuted in a much better manner. The lesson to take home from this: you can't make a boring song less boring by just yelling through the 2/3's you don't really have lyrics for.

鬼祭 was not a complete failure though. In fact, the song "柘榴" saves it. It's another faster tempoed song with the same heavily distorted guitar style that this band is accustomed to using, mixing a beautiful chorus melody with a lot of nice rock elements. For example, the verse of the song is predominantly just vocals and base with some guitar support depending on where exactly in the song you're currently listening to. The bridge to the chorus is a lot more wild sounding due to the under water distortion on Mashiro's voice and the conflicting guitar parts. Then there's the chorus: high catchy and has a beautiful melody. I love songs that use doubling of the singer's voice really well, particularly if it's a harmony in 3rds, and "柘榴" is great at it. After the first chorus is a guitar solo that relatively relates to the rest of the song and is extremely short. Then, out of no where, there is a the Piass-esque breakdown after the last rendition of the chorus. I find the bass lines to be particularly awesome during this section and I wonder if their drummer (being an ex-the Piass member) had anything to do with that. Overall, "柘榴" is the summation of all of the great melodic rock songs the Kiryu has played with minimal kote-kei and neo-traditional wank for a change. I hope that they put this song on the next album instead of the title track (which I know they're not going to, but maybe they'll include this as a "2nd edition" version).

Last up is "花火" (fireworks). It's a slow ballad that begins with a music box motif and gradually turns into a strange mix of a soppy vk ballad and 70's psychedelic rock. Completely out of left field to me, but interesting nonetheless. I never really paid a whole lot of attention to this song, although listening to it right now I'm not finding much to complain about. I do like it, but I don't know it well enough to describe it accurately (or inaccurately). I apologize if someone out there considers this to be the best Kiryu song ever and wanted me to do it justice.

[[New Costumes]]

What's so new about them? I'm not entirely sure myself. I do notice that each time the get new costumes the patterns on the kimonos change a bit, but they're not as a drastic change as their very early costume sets were. Currently they look a bit different, but for this set they more or less look the same as 2009 onwards.

-OZ- : Souga

2011-10-10T13:37:00.001-04:00

-OZ- has released their latest single a few days ago (I know, I'm writing about a current release!) after a pretty decent wait since Rouge. The band was supposed to release a mini-album in June, I believe, but they quietly stopped talking about that release and hoped that everyone would forget (see also: Pokemon's GS Ball drama). Obviously that mini did not happen and instead we got a single much, much later. Regardless, a release is better than no release, and I did quite enjoy this CD. Also, just for reference, the band's OHP writes the band's name as "OZ." This caused a tag bitch-fight, but I just wanted to through in my two cents here. I pretty much agree with KILLINSTINCT: the only reason they dropped the -'s on their website is so they're actually google-able. I still tag their mp3's as "-OZ-" and I still verbally pronounce their name as "OZ," not "Oz, formally Oz surrounded by dashes." Don't believe me? Google image "-oz-" and write a comment describing what comes up. Then google image search "OZ" and see what comes up there. Neither will result in a picture of the band (right away), so that's the reason behind that.

爪牙 [Single] (10/05/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. Reverse

02. Unseal

03. Ecdysis

Based on the previews released by the band, a lot of people, myself included, expected this single to be a nod at the late D'espairsRay, including a bit of an industrial / synth-rock edge. After listening to the whole track, I was surprised to find that there really wasn't any industrial influence at all. Yeah, there was minimal synthesizer being used, but an industrial song that does not make. The song starts off with a small scratching noise and then quickly develops into a deep guitar riff as the song builds up and then explodes into a growl and the main theme. This part of the song has one guitar and the bass play an aggressive support rhythm, while the other guitar airily plays it's counter melody on top. Thus far, "Reverse" is up there on the awesome scale as "Birthday" for me, although this song is more exciting at a quicker rate and it isn't an SE! The chorus of the song starts off in clean vocals and then, as the song progresses, Natsuki becomes more and more enraged up until a growled bridge. The chorus of this song is all growled, yet it still retains a fun atmosphere. I don't mean fun, like playful and cute, but there is something about this song that takes its bellicose nature and makes it enjoyable and not "I'M SO ANGSTY RRRRRAAAAAAAAA." I'm not communicating that thought well at all, but I'm writing this in class, mind you. The guitar solo of this song is a bunch of sixteenth note runs that gradually get higher and higher in pitch, before a melancholic acoustic breakdown. The rest of the song is more or less more of the same. Overall, love this song. It's fun, lively, and has the hutspa I expect of -OZ-.

次の曲節は「Unseal」です. Unlike most of -OZ-'s latest singles, I actually really like a B-side. This hasn't happened to me since BULK, and I wasn't even a fan of them when that released. This song starts off with a really cool guitar riff, but it isn't as heavy as the first song. Instead, the band focused more on a dueling guitar-esque song structure with some nice bass. Likewise, "Unseal" is more about the cleans than the growls, so if you prefer songs of that nature then you'll probably like this much more than "Reverse." The chorus of this song is kinda pretty: it has a nice melody and it's on the catchy side, but I don't consider it to be the best melody -OZ- has ever written. After the chorus is an acoustic guitar solo with some drum support. Shortly after is vocal bridge that stands out form the rest of the song for how exposed it is, mixed with some guitar chords with a ton of bending going on. This section provides some nice contrast and it's a different direction that the band rarely implements. After that is a typical heavy breakdown than the real guitar solo. For several reasons, namely the guitar solo, the melody, and the way the drumming sounds, this song sounds a lot like a song D would put out, just without their habit of trying way too hard to sound heavy. This isn't a bad though, however. It was just an interesting observation I made while listening to this song on the walk to class this morning. Nice song~

The last song is "Ecdysis." This is the ballad of the single: it starts off with acoustic guitar and annoying gaps in between phrases. Once that section is plodded through, the vocals start: lots of vibrato and sounds a bit forced in terms of emotion to me. Since the song is in a 6/8 time signature, it does have a very natural, floating around in space, flow to it. The chorus of this song is very pretty: it's sad, yet powerful at the same time. The guitar solo is accompanied by very nice 90's VK spiccato, which made me happy (think Dir en Grey's "I'll" and it's opening). Although it does have a pretty chorus, I feel like a lot of other parts in this song are way too forced. I don't hate this song, but I don't believe I'll be listening to this song in 6 months.

All in all, this single was great. It had a lot of variety and was mostly made up of songs that were lively and engaging but weren't pseudo covers of each other. Some people are saying that this single is like the Music era of Girugamesh, but I'm not familiar with that album, thus will not contest that opinion.

[[New Costumes]]

Their new costumes are pretty...well, typical VK from 2007~2010. It uses the almost trite black and white motif that has been done many many times before, just not by -OZ-....wait, they did this for their last two singles. Well, I guess it is a bit trite, now that I think about it. At least the members actually look different, this time. For example, Natsuki looks like a completely different person with his hair not straightened and over one eye. Overall: ehh.

Cu[be] - Twilight ST★R

2011-10-07T16:31:00.002-04:00

So, after about 9 months of just doing shows, Cu[be] has put out their second single through UNDER CODE PRODUCTION. I like how the incorporated a cube structure into their new promotional picture: very metaphorical. Anyway, Cu[be] is very slow on the releasing new music thing, so I guess they're taking the E'm~Grief~ route (although, in E'm's defense, they did say that one of their singles took an obscene amount of time to put together, so they get SOME slack). I'm not sure if the lack of production stems from the fact that they've been busy with lives or other things, or because they're seemingly not all that popular.

Twilight ST★R [Single] (09/07/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. Twilight ST★R

02. Colorless Device

03. the last wedding.

So. That name. Well, I was very very concerned when I saw that they would be including a '★' into the name of their single, mostly because of REALies. The problem with Cu[be]'s last single was that it seemed like the band lacked direction. Seeing a cutesy choice of typography, to me, only meant that they decided to pick a different direction, although still awkward, and I would just have to suffer through it. Surprisingly enough, though, the song is a hard-rock song (although a bit of a generic one, at that). The beginning of the song uses low guitar and bass riffs along with some fast drumming before turning into the main guitar structure of the song which is still more aggressive than what I originally expected, but very 'play-it-safe' of them. To be more elaborate: it's like a mixture of [Idon'tReallyKnowWhatI'mTalkingAboutHere]Deathgaze's groove-metal-ish power chord style mixed with a pop-punk guitar melody[/honesty]. Rara's voice sounds reminiscent of Aika's from Werkmare at this point in the song, which is pretty cool, and his growls are highly distorted to sound very cat-like. However, he still does the moaning vibrato: "yaa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-."Although I wished he would grow out of that, it doesn't look as though it's going to happen. Moving on to the chorus: here the song gets much more playful and pop-like, which seems to be a current trend in VK as of late (super aggressive intro and first chorus, poppy chorus, unneeded guitar solo, one line for verse 2, chorus 2 or 3 times, aggressive outro). I found the melody of this song to be rather forgettable. After the chorus is a return to the introductory melody, then the guitar solo. The solo is actually pretty nice because of how it starts off melodic and then morphs into a slight technical flaunt session. Overall, "Twilight ST★R" is an okay song: there are a lot of other bands who have songs like this that are probably much better. Definitely not worth the 9-month wait. If they released this in April, I probably would have thought differently; however, January to September for a mediocre song won't win you as many new fans as old ones you've lost.

Next up is "Colorless Device." This song starts off as a weird fusion of Duel Jewel's "Mxxder Marble," their own song "タナトス," and rap. Shortly after that it gets a bit more electronic based, but still holds onto a bit of the hard-rock elements found in the title track. Although there's barely any synth part in the verses of the song, the drumming patterns make it seem dance-like. The actual chorus of the song does use electronic elements as support for a pretty cool guitar melody, but it also has a "trying too hard to be poppy" flavor to it. The bad vibrato is much more apparent in this song than in the first one. Fortunately, the guitar solo in this song, like the last, is the highlight of the song.There is also a slight breakdown after the solo as well. From the looks of it, "Colorless Device" is definitely not a song for me. I'm not too fond of dance rock unless there's a lot of heart put into it, and this song doesn't have that hutzpa to me. This definitely belongs as the B-side.

I expected "the last wedding." to be a ballad from the name of it, but, once again, it isn't. The vocals in this song start off very soft as one guitar plays a very trippy guitar riff (think the Kiryu's style of playing really warped sounding guitar) along with a music box playing. During the bridge to the chorus the vocals start to sound really out of place with the much heavier sounding guitar. I've seen other people say this about Cu[be]'s music before: the vocal melody is good by itself and the guitar's music is fine as well, but together they don't mesh. As for the chorus, it's pretty much the same deal as the other songs on this single except they added in some Luzmelt auto-tuned support vocals to make it different. Overall, "the last wedding" is okay. I think it's the strongest song on the single since it uses a lot of different elements in it, like a music box, piano for more than 2 seconds, light auto-tune, and variety in the guitar parts.

All in all, this single was rather underwhelming for me: the band shows that they can play heavily without sounding stupid in a lot of parts of their songs, but they don't stay with that idea. Instead they return to being wishy-washy and it's frustrating to listen to. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they announce that they are disbanding soon since they barely get any news as it is and their music since joining UCP has been lackluster. Something more like their first mini-album would be very nice.

[[New Costumes]]

At first I didn't like their new costumes at all because they looked like they were trying to be the not as pretty sister band of Lycaon. However, I've grown to like them much more once I saw the cover art for their single. For some reason, the tragic Las Vegas look fits well with the post-apocalyptic art of the actual single. The music, however, first more with the costume s than the other imagery.

Megaromania - Quintessence Voyage

2011-09-08T21:02:00.003-04:00

Earlier in the summer, Megaromania released their first mini-album as of their new line-up! As you can see, they look dramatically different from their previous costumes (the leather garbage bag ones), but I'll discuss that later. Another solid release from the band, Quintessence Voyage has quite a variety of songs on it, ranging from neo-classical metal, to hard rock, a kote-kei-esque song, and others that are a mish-mash of uncharted musical territory for the band as of late. Why yes, I will be making horrible pirate puns throughout this post. The mini-album came in three types, A-C, respectively, two of which were considered limited pressing because they came with DVDs of live shows. Unlike their other recent releases, these CDs were also very expensive: Type-A was 3,990 yen ($51.50 in real people money), but I guess that's worth it if you're a super fan of Megaromania. Each limited press might have also be limited to 300 copies or so (don't quote me on it) and were supposedly hand pressed or put together by the band themselves. Pretty much, they put their blood, sweat, and tears into the making of this mini-album.

Quintessence Voyage [Mini-Album] (08/03/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. Distinctive Territory

02. Quintessence Voyage

03. if...reminiscence

04. bouquet

05. Phantom to the Past

06. Atmosphere

"Distinctive Territory" is a fast paced rock song and a great introduction to this mini-album. The main guitar riff reminds me of the predominate guitar melody in "Distrust Labyrinth," and even has a similar drum introduction. The vocals for the start of the song are all clean and tame up until the chorus of the song. Unfortunately, Sui does some more of the vocal out bursts that were a problem in "Oath-Cross of Eternity-," namely the crescendo swells that he does a bit too well. Props for trying, but I think it hurts a bit more than helps in this instance. The song follows a format of verse --> chorus --> verse --> chorus --> bridge, then guitar solo. The guitar solo is a typical Megaromania one, lots of fingering and scale runs, mixed with really high pitched and accented notes. The breakdown of the song is soft and gentle to counter the rather unwieldy nature of the rest of the song. Although this song is on the shorter side, it is a nice and lively addition to Megaromania's repertoire even if kind of "Distrust Labyrinth v. 2.0. "

"Quintessence Voyage" is the title track of the cd. It starts off with a drum intro and then some syncopated and heavily accented guitar chords, followed by some aggressive guitar riffs accompanied loud drumming emphasizing each beat, followed by the same pattern again with the drumming at twice the speed. There is a brief resolution, followed by a glissando scale before the true introduction of the song starts. This section is marked by low steady vocals cruising on top of a well orchestrated support melody by the guitar and bass. Thus far QV has proven to be a much more mature composition made by the band, and actually written as a joint effort of Sui and Misery. After the first verse is a small bridge where Sui's voice gets a bit airy over the rising and falling of the guitar and bass lines. The chorus of the song is rather pop-rock sounding: catchy melody, singable, uses keyboard to fill in the chords that guitars don't quite cover, and has very little Megaromania's metallic aspect to it until the end of the chorus, which thus begins another turbulent phrase that was introduced at the start of this voyage. The guitar solo of this song is very short and is quickly cut off by a piano / acapella section before melting into a sort-of-chorus-but-still-the-verse section. Unfortunately, the end of this song is pretty bad: a couple faux-goth elements were thrown in, like church bells and low register guitars, and Sui begins to scream like an injured dog only to be answered by not so manly gang vocals. Also, thank goodness I kept listening, the actual last note is so short: probably a 16th note in length. That leaves exactly no room for any sort of cadence whatsoever and annoys me to no end. Completely out of touch with the rest of the song and could have been an easily avoided musical iceberg. QV brings a lot of new elements into Megaromania's music and makes for a much better title track than other recent releases, namely "Aurora," even though that was written by Sui as well. Also unlike a lot of their releases, the CD does have a music video for a song that wasn't released 8 months ago.

"if...reminiscence" follows in the footsteps of "Punishment for Pain." Actually, it's a mixture of that song and "Amethyst." Those are two of my favorite Megaromania songs, but do they actually sound good when shaken together in a tight container? Well, better than one might actually think, actually. There are a lot of nice piano parts in this song as well as some operatic singing that wasn't actually done by Sui: two big elements from the songs I previously compared it to. The verse of the song is sang over relatively tame guitar and bass lines with operatic wailing in the background. What I liked about the music in this song is that it switches from section to section very well, tame to aggressive, and makes for a pleasant listening experience. The chorus was actually the weakest part of the song for me: I feel like Sui had literally no range at all in this part of the song and just hovered around the same 6 notes which all happen to be in the range that makes him sound pretty nasally. Aside from that section, I really liked this song because it reminds me of Malice Mizer's "麗しき仮面の招待状" a bit. This might become a favorite in the future because there a lot of beautiful sections to it.

Next up is "bouquet," which a lot of people liked for it's kote-kei elements. The song starts off with the main vocal melody being sang on a fake record player, brittle and poppy noises and all. The real face of the song contains a lot of fast paced and low register guitar, daunting keyboard parts, and vocals that sound distraught. Somehow, the chorus remains to sound similar to what I just described yet still have a pirate feel to it because of the 6/8 time change. The guitar solo of the song sounds extremely random: I'm not sure how to describe it, but it really doesn't sound like the rest of the song at all both in timbre and in melody, but it later corrects itself and blends back into the song. I guess you could say that "bouquet" is the 2011 version of "End of Vengeance," just with more expensive synth. This honestly wasn't my favorite song on the CD, not because it was bad, but I really can't help but feel neutral about it. The faded vocal parts do sound really cool though.

"Phantom to the Past" quickly became my favorite song from this release. It starts off with a symphonic (canned) introduction, then a very Misery opening guitar riff with lots of arpeggios and fake baroque elements. The verse of the song is fast paced and lively with low guitar and bass parts as well as ornate string parts popping in here and there. Like other songs, "Phantom to the Past" uses both harpsichord and gang-vocals: two things I do really like when used properly. The merge from the verse to chorus is seamless: I love how the mood changes from dark and brooding to happy and confident within a few very well placed notes. Again, this is a sign of the band's maturity. As I implied, the main melody of this song is playful and whimsical, yet confident and flirty. The guitar solo is introduced by a fake baroque string solo (love it!), followed by a guitar solo that mimics the same melody and then expands upon it. Hyoga's part in this song is actually audible, which is something I'd like to note. After I actually paid attention to this song, I really really started to like it. There are so many good elements going on in here. I'm not sure how to exactly compare it to their earlier works though: I guess calling it "Apocalypse v. 3.0" would be pretty accurate, but I think saying "Apocalypse" . "Oblivious" (that's php's way of concatenation, by the way) would be more appropriate. Regardless of not really necessary comparisons, I am very happy that the band re-released this song. Originally it was released as a live distributed song and only a few people that I know of were able to hear it (including someone who doesn't even like this band. Why would you share rarez with people who don't even truly want them?) . Lately this band has been releasing a lot of live-distributed songs, including one called "Wail of Crested," and a couple "tribute songs" (cover songs) that will be released towards the end of September. Too bad they'll be ridiculously expensive, driving people to have a need to pirate them.

The last song on the release is "Atmosphere." It starts off with really brittle guitar and vocals that sound legitimately upset about something. The verse of the song sounds so familiar to me. At first I thought it sounded like -OZ-'s "Butterfly," but that doesn't seem to be the case after listening to both. Like "Phantom to the Past," there are a lot of symphonic elements in this song, including the same fake horns used in Juka's "Saint Croix." Similar to "bouquet," as well, there is a small distorted record-sounding section, albeit a bit brief. All in all, "Atmosphere" isn't really all that atmosphere-y in musical terms; rather, it is pretty heavy and intense. A definite misnomer, but a good listen.

[[New Costumes]]

Personally, I think the new costumes are great. They're starting to live up to their creative aestetics theme by actually using costumes that are creative and look different from everyone else / their own other costume sets. Although the mini-album wasn't nearly as nautical as I had hoped for (I wanted some Pirate-kei-core :( ) , they definitely look the part. As InArtistic (leader of the We Love UCP community, found here or through the butterfly logo on the side) said, their costumes finally look well fitted for each member. No more baggy Misery, less awkward Hyouga hair, and Chikage doesn't look like he wants to murder my loved ones.

Globalizing Visual-kei

2011-09-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

JaME, a Japamese music new site that doesn't specifically specialize in Visual-kei, has been doing a Visual-kei web series for all of the summer. There are a lot of good articles in there, as well as interviews about topics not really addressed in the Western fanbase that your average fan would rather leave up to his or her imagination than find out the truth. Some of the topics covered include how hard it is to have concert overseas, the unglamorous sides of being in a band, the struggles it takes to actually be in a visual-kei band, and how the scene has evolved since the late 80's. The series was summarized with the results of a mass poll taken back in May or June, asking various questions about what the Western fans thought they knew about Visual-kei: how did you find out about it; how popular do you think it is; is sex appeal a big deal for you; how often do you buy cds; and various other questions to that nature. Instead of posting the results right away, the author and developer of the whole project wrote a bunch of articles to counter the obvious misconceptions a lot of people taking the survey had, with the idea of there not being a lot of credible literature on the subject being his driving force.

All in all, the articles are a great read: very informative and more middle-of-the-road than the interview with an ex-VK record label owner. Just like other JaME articles, it does kind of read like a fluffy fanfiction at times, sugar coating opinions to make it seem a bit more rose colored than it needed to be, but with much less douche-baggery than the other interview I mentioned.

I'd like to take the time to go through each result and give my opinion and input for a few of the sections covered.

Age: Most of the people who answered were either 12 and under (le sigh), or 17~21 (myself). The interest died off a bit as the age groups got older, which doesn't surprise me, but I was surprised to see how many younger people like it, especially how dramatic the bar for age 13 and 12 and under varied.

Where do you live: I was not surprised by these results at all. Most popular place was the US (it's an English site, so we like to go read things that aren't in some sort of Portuguese slang like a lot of other VK sites are in), followed by Poland and Russia (both of which have some frightening fans) among other European countries, then South American countries like Chile and Brazil. There were a good 30 or so countries listed, so they did have a diverse demographic of readers, but I wouldn't say that there actually only 20 people who like VK in Venezuela, for example: lots of factors play into why several countries had such a low turn out.

How did you find out about VK: not entirely surprised that "the internet" was a high result, especially since most of the people who listen to it do so on youtube or download their music. "A friend who also listens to it" was a pretty typical result in my opinion, especially since I find out about things from friends all the time. My choice was "a magazine;" specifically Purple Sky's Versailles issue.

Would you listen to a non-Japanese band that tries to be VK: Alright, so that question wasn't exactly worded like that, but I believe I put yes. To be honest, I don't care what language a band sings in so long as I like their music. Unfortunately, most wanna-be-vk bands absolutely suck, their visuals are beyond half-assed, and they're pretty embarrassing to admit having listened to: lots of dyed hair and stupid Hot Topic clothing instead of androgyny and useless facebelts.

Do you listen to mulitple types of music: these questions always make me laugh. "I listen to VK but lots of different kinds of VK, but not Oshare because An Cafe aren't even cute haha and Japanese hard core like unsraw and sadie." Ohhh gosh, I only made up 15% or so of that quote, and I really, honestly and truly, wish I was lying to you. Everyone thinks that what they listen to is diverse. Saying you aren't diverse is like admitting you're fat: not matter how obese you are, you're more than likely going to make sure any conversation about fat people is going to steer away from you so you don't admit that you're something many people consider negative (inb4 getting yelled at, I love fat people just as much as I love everyone else). Anyway, there's no true way to see if you're diverse or not, it's pretty much something someone else has to label for you and that label can change from person to person. For example, I listen to an unhealthy amount of visual-kei, but, as I jokingly stated before, it is actually a variety of genres: I'm not opposed to popular, "mainstream" bands, and I love indie kotekei circle-jerk crap too, but I also listen to non-visual Japanese bands (admittedly not a whole lot, but more than an average vk fan does), as well as plenty of Western ones.

Do you listen to underground music from your own country: No, because I hate American indie music 95% of the time. Trip-hop, Lo-fi, and most things remotely psychodelic like MGMT piss me off more often than not. Ugh, and dub-step. Uuuggghhhh

For the music consumption section: was not surprised in the least about how often people admit to buying music, as well as how reserved they were to admitting they download. Cds from there are expensive, no doubt, but many more options have been opening up for the purchase of music that is much much cheaper than importing. I'm not going to preach anymore on the subject, but I always find it funny how self-righteous people get when they have to confess how often they do something "bad." Also amused at how many people haven't been to a concert before. I'm not being a concert elitist, but many people criticize the scene by saying "More people reply to this download thread than actually show up to their shows," and I'm seeing that this is more of a reality than a snarky comment.

Do you think most Japanese people are accepting of Visual-kei : not surprised at all. Most people thought they were, but I've read, and can draw my own conclusions, that that is not the case at all. The internet does skew a person's view a great deal, but the industry is fantastic at creating an illusion of popularity.

Most of the results of this survey I expect, I have to say, but I've been waiting for months for them to come out. I wish they went more in-depth about the different types of visual style instead of gracing over it with cool pie charts, but oh well.

CD Wishlist

2011-08-31T10:18:00.004-04:00

Just as the title would imply, this is my wishlist of CDs I'd like, either in mp3 form or physically owned.

2nd Awake- Split cross-cover single among 2nd Awake, ハルシオン, and Pastel Holic that probably didn't happen since it still doesn't have a name (6/6/11)

-aika- - 哀愁☆ロック

BAISER- Paradise Lost～the case of Eve～(9/11/99) ; PICTURES～Vice Style～

DEViL KiTTY- 【04.10.01 配布CD】 Vo.弑夕 (04/10/01)

Facizm- singles and mini-albums that aren't Nervous

LIPHLICH- Discography. (http://www.myspace.com/liphlich/music/songs?filter=featured) Specifically their album SOMETHING WICKED COMES HERE.

LuLu- 【配布CD】理由 ; 【配布CD】衝動 ; 【ワンマンチケット池袋Cyber店頭購入特典２曲入りCD】 (09/09/2006)

Pyuera- 1124430824 ; Camera Obscura

Ru:Natic- 生命ノ…青ィ糸ガ… (Demo-tape, not single)

VellaDonna- RISK (06/28/00)

The Vodka- Abnormal Line (01/09/11)
ウォッカ(vodka) - Opponent of the truth from the future that no one knows
ウォッカ(vodka) - 哭く、おかっぱ少女(naku okabba shoujo) (2011/05/31)
ウォッカ(vodka) - "不完全エルドラド(fukanzen eldorado)" (2011/06/24)
ウォッカ(vodka) - "最期はいつも突然だった…。(saigo wa itsumo totsuzen datta)" (2011/07/24)

WERKMARE- Elegy ; Psychopass
WERMARE- 思考回路と遮断神経

Mind Garden Omnibuses, volumes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.

It's my birthday

2011-08-30T08:37:00.000-04:00

I am now 20.

La Fẽerie

2011-08-21T20:52:00.001-04:00

Status: Disbanded (1998~2000(?))

Style: Kote-kei

Genre: Gothic / punk / melodic rock mixture that Key Party bands were good at

La Fẽerie were one of the few Key Party bands I actively listen to, mixing a bunch of genres together in their music that makes them a bit hard to pin-point exactly what they are. Visually, they were pretty typical for their time: long, light colored hair, heavy makeup, lacy outfits, and photos with high white balance so not a single nose could be seen. Key Party was a record label active in the late 90's but did not last very long into the turn of the century. Unlike Matina, the label focused on quality instead of quantity, making their bands much more unique and well polished than a lot of Matina's bands were. Not to say that I like Key Party's output more than Matinas, it's just a fact that fewer bands put out a song or two before disappearing on Key Party than they did with Kisaki.

With that being said, La Fẽerie only had one release that has made it to the light of day (on the internet). They only had one mini-album and one omnibus song, making their musical contributions very brief, but very much appreciated nonetheless. I've heard that they were around before they signed to Key Party and there are rumors of extremely rare demo-tapes of them, but who knows if those are valid statements. Other uncertainties regarding this band include when they started activities and when they actually finished them. It can be assumed that they didn't last past the turn of the century since members of the band moved on to other projects, but it isn't exactly clear if the band was still together when they had their first V.A. release.

[[Members]]

Vocals: 哀音-AINE- (→La Feerie→Valkyrja(藍音)→)

Guitar: 紗南-SANA- (La Feerie→)

Guitar: 紫綺-SHIKI- (→La Feerie→Beata→Loon Eye's Millyie→)

Bass: 由姫-YUKI (La Feerie→)

Drums: 沙月-SATSUKI- (→La Feerie→cure→shortcut garage(いのいの)→)

[[Discography]]

La Berceuse [Mini-Album] (12/16/1998)

01. 音階の魔力　〜Symphony Of La Feerie〜

02. 目覚メノトキ　〜覚醒サレタモウ一人ノXx〜

03. 「．．．予感」

04. 「pwzac」

05. ～unfair～untruth～unrest～

06. Realize

07. La berse

Tribal Millennium Arivall [Omnibus] (07/17/2000)

01. 「...for lover」

[[Notable Tracks]]

La Fẽerie is the kind of band that is very easy to sit and listen to in one sitting: they have a small amount of songs that sound far enough apart from each other to make the listening experience diverse while keeping a unique personality to that only this band would have. Of course I would have loved it if they actually put out more material, but that's not to say one cannot be happy with what they actually did manage to put out.

Track one of their mini-album is an instrumental SE that's pretty long. It is actually pretty symphonic, with a well orchestrated synthetic fake string section, emotional ins and outs, and a very fantasy realm appeal to it. Think a Moi Dix Mois instrumental, take $500 out of the budget, tell Mana to wait outside, and add in some early 90's RPG introductory song influence: light, fluffy, and mysterious is what I'm getting at here.I truly love this introduction and sometimes just listen to it by itself.

The next song on the mini-album is my favorite. "目覚メノトキ　〜覚醒サレタモウ一人ノXx〜" starts off with a great bass solo before exploding into the main melody of the song. What I love most about this song is how intricate it is: lots of melodies flowing in and out of each other, the bass is actually audible, and there are many themes to this song. After a few listens to this song, I absolutely fell in love with it and consider it to be one of the many hidden gems of visual-kei. What's so fascinating about this song is that it's very complicated, yet so short. Timing in at less than 3 minutes long, "目覚メノトキ　〜覚醒サレタモウ一人ノXx〜" has several themes to it: the opening theme, a slow section in the middle, and the melody played during the bridges and choruses. One of my favorite parts of this song is when the music dies down, one guitar plays a build-up melody, then the second joins in as it repeats, then the bass, and then ultimately the drums join in before the slow middle section of the song. Overall, a fantastic song and pretty much has everything I could ever ask for in a VK song.

The third song on the album is of a much different dynamic: instead of being wild and labyrinthine, this song is more sombre and heart felt while still having a "La Feerie" feel to it. I like to think of this song as being a mixture of sorrow and optimism all at once. For example, someone's best friend dies. They're going to be extremely sad, but they might have feelings of happiness as well: "they're in a better place," "he's not hurting anymore," "he's with his other friends who died before him," ect, even though the immense pain of tragedy still looms over this person.This song is pretty similar: the vocals sound happy and optomistic, but the guitar melodies sound as if they're wailing and distraught. Even the guitar solo of the song is an optimistic build up into nothing: an anticlimactic end to whatever hopes were had. 「．．．予感」 isn't exactly my favorite song by this band, but it is still a nice listen.

「pwzac」 is of a similar nature to 「．．．予感」 : kind of slow melody, yet not exactly a ballad. I really am not a huge fan of this song either: something about the main melody of the song doesn't sound right to me, plus I love the more wild songs they have like "目覚メノトキ　〜覚醒サレタモウ一人ノXx〜." I still listen to this from time to time, but I never get 「pwzac」 cravings. If you like slower, melodic old vk songs, then you'd love this one.

"～unfair～untruth～unrest～" starts off in a very dark manner: the melody being played just reeks betrayal and disappointment. Even the vocals sound as though they're upset since they're not being beautifully sung: instead they're being nonchalantly spoken in rhythm with the song in a spiteful "I'm not really trying anymore" manner. Soon after the vocalist begins to sing again as the vocal melodies turns more sad than enraged, making this addition to La Berceuse another emotional roller coaster. The guitar solo of this song is on the dark side as well and abruptly stops as the vocals pick up again. As the name implies, this song does have a very uneasy, emotional unrest aspect to it. A pretty nice song!

"Realize" is the last real song on the album. Once again, it splits into different themes like the mini-albums 2nd song, but isn't as much of a masterpiece to me. This song is the most frustrated sounding song out of the whole album, as if the story being told has came to the realization that everything was a lie. A bit dramatic on my part, yes, but this song does have a different aura to it than the other songs before it. More great guitar work in this song, with a repeat in musical layering that was apparent in the 目覚メノトキ. The song ends on an optomistic note before dieing off into the last SE of the album.

「...for lover」 was their only other song released aside from their mini-album. It kind of starts off with music from a .hack dungeon before morphing into a music box ballad for a few seconds. It then turns into a circus-like VK song after music box section, similar to Baiser on some aspects up until the vocals come in. Although it is a song of a slightly different style than their La Berceuse release, it almost feels like it was supposed to be a long-lost-song from that CD. A nice mix of old school gothic rock and melodic rock, 「...for lover」 is one of my favorite songs by La Fẽerie. Similar to their other songs, FL goes from being sad and melancholic to grossly happy and Raphael-like with a nod to Pachabel's cannon during the guitar solo. Another great song and not a bad place to start trying them out.

Overall, La Fẽerie is a mixture of all of the good things I love about older VK in one band. It's a shame that they didn't last longer and make more music, but I'll take what I can get. Another Key Party band revived recently and plans on staying around for over a year, so there's hope that they might come back one day too (not really, but I'll just pretend there is anyway).

[[Costumes]]

Their only promotional picture does one of two things for me: first off, I can tell that I like what their upper torso looks like; second off, I don't really know what they look like. Strange? Not entirely: there have been many instances where I see a picture of vk band members and they look completely different in a video because I can actually see past their chest to get the full aspect of their costumes. Anyway, love the frilly dark angel / brolita look even if I can only see half of them.

卍搦め : Naziploitation in Visual-kei

2011-08-11T13:42:00.003-04:00


Syndrome - A gothic rock band on the Matina label.

Visual-kei has many styles, facets, subcultures, sub-genres, niches, and communities: a fact that can be a bit surprising to someone who doesn't even know what the movement (if that's even the correct noun for it) is. Based on what I've read from "official sources," in addition to what I've seen people who have experienced the scene first-hand, visual-kei is a relatively unpopular phenomenon in Japan: everyone doesn't do visual-kei, most Japanese people don't care about The GazettE, and even during it's most popular time in Japan, the style of dress and music was predominantly associated with social outcasts and people who were socially stunted. Although that stigma became lightened during the late 90's with the emergence of mainstream-accepted, less gothic and metallic acts like Malice Mizer (at that point), Penicillin, and Kuroyume, many people still associate the scene with that sort of mental picture. Even today, 10~25 years after the more abrasive proto-visual-kei acts, as well as a dramatically lightening in intensity of visuals as a whole, the idea of going to see these bands "is for freaks" still holds true.

The earliest of proto-vk bands often incorporated a lot of shock value into their acts, like how X referred to their act as "Psychedelic Violence, Crime Of Visual Shock" and even plastered it across their breakthrough album. Although the crazy hair, leather outfits, and obscene makeup were enough to scare away people, or lure them in, other bands used this method in addition to even more abrasive publicity stunts, such as the use of Nazi imagery.

The use of this imagery isn't unique to Japan: many other punk rock and thrasher metal bands from around the world have included the use of Swastikas in their image way before it became "cool" in visual-kei. Here's an except from Wikipedia:

Uniforms and other imagery related to Nazi Germany have been on sale in East Asia, where some consider it fashionable. Hong Kong and Japan have each witnessed a growth in the casual wearing of SS uniforms, as well as increased interest in White power music. Sometimes in East Asia, Nazi uniforms are used as part of cosplay. In South Korea, an area generally isolated from Nazi cultural influences during the Nazi era, Time magazine observed in 2000 "an unthinking fascination with the icons and imagery of the Third Reich."^[10] Nazi-inspired imagery featured in various early releases from Japanese band The 5.6.7.8's.^[11]

Wait, Swastikas? White Power? Um..

This is the reaction I'd assume most "normal" people would have after seeing a Japanese rock band decked out in heavy makeup and crazy hair, sporting an arm band on the cover of a CD called "End of to Destruction" (note: not a real CD...I think). My first reaction to seeing this happen in a non-hypothetical sense was mostly all of my World War II history flooding through my memory: "Nazis were bad guys. Why is Kisaki wearing...why is....is he a bad guy?!" Tax evasion, cancer sticks, and allowing Chariots to exist aside, I'm pretty sure Kisaki isn't any more malicious than the next record label owner (okay, bad example). and only wore that paraphernalia for the !!! factor.

I think part of the reason why I was so bothered by this was actually because of my schooling. Although history does change based on where you learn it, there have been a lot of historical events that were undeniably bad. I am morally opposed to mass lynching, cooking people in ovens, gassing them, labeling them with different colored triangles so they are tormented in their own ~special~ way, racial supremacy, and complete disregard for the value of a human life. However, the societal interpretations of what happened vary from culture to culture. Since I've only experienced the American rendition, I have been taught that we were the heroic good guys who swooped in towards the end of the war, saved the world, were attacked by the sneaky yellow man, and became leader of the modern world empire as a result. Over-glorified and a bit 'Murika centric, yes, but I take that mentality with a few grains of salt. Unfortunately, most people do not, especially those who are 3~5 generations older because they lived through it or were directly involved in it. I'm not going to get into how Americans view Japanese rock, that can be an anecdote for another day.

With that being said, I'm assuming that the Japanese culture viewed the German's reactionary beliefs a bit differently during the 30's and 40's, and as a result have a different relationship with their past than we do. I could be completely wrong, though, but I feel that East Asian countries would be a bit more, although not to a large degree, accepting of the use of symbols of a darker time as a means of being edgy.

Is there a reason for this?

There really isn't much "official" (official in quotes again because there isn't a set vk spokesperson) as to why bands do this, but there is a lot speculation and professional writing that would imply various ideas that all point to the same thing: shock value. Although most of the usage of Naziploitation was done in the 80's and a bit in the early 90's, the usage of Nazi imagery continued on into the late 90's and early 2000's, with very small reappearances in recent times. Very few visual-kei bands, if they even associated themselves with the movement, wrote songs whose lyrics pertained to Nazi ideals or anything related to that subject, although there examples of those who did. One instance was Rosenfeld, a visual thrash metal band from the late 80's. Although they are not visual-kei, they did dress up in wild costumes.


An example of Rosenfeld's use of Nazi symbolism.

Their lastfm bio harps on the fact that there were a lot of bands at the time of their activity that used similar publicity stunts, but Rosenfeld, among other bands like Mein Kampf, actually took the whole Nazi thing seriously (at least in their music. Cannot say anything about their personal lives).

Other visual-kei bands who played on this shock factor bandwagon included Malice Mizer, SHAZNA, and dozens of "no-name" bands who not only used Nazi influence but WWII Japanese military uniforms such as 雀羅 and 昭和愚裸魅會, although the appeal they aimed for was much more muted. As shown here, Shanza used uniforms similar to SS dress, but the arm band contained a glorified cross between an 'S' and a treble clef. Like contemporary VK bands, Shazna also changed costumes from release to release, so the use of these uniforms were not prolonged. Although I am not a fan of this band (never really listened to them, to be honest), I think they only used these costumes for their song "Magenta story."

Malice Mizer's use of WWII uniforms was mainly for their lives shows since the band was very performance-orientated. Although they didn't specifically wear Nazi paraphernalia, they did use other Japanese empire symbolism as part of their stories during concerts. I'm not 100% if this was meant to be shocking or rather historical, but from an American point of view it's more along the side of "shocking."

Other Uses of Imagery and How it is Used Today

The real use of the word "Naziploitation" is actually used to describe a sub-genre of pornography: Nazi exploitation . Although those films are used to exploit people of their human dignity for other's pleasure, the idea of exploitation films goes beyond carnal gratification--they're also used today to play off of people's contemporary fears. For example, people were very afraid of Swine / Bird / Cow / Yak / Goldfish flus, so there is a movie coming out soon called Infected that tells a story about how everyone got sick and died. In the 80's, nuclear radiation was a big fear, so a plethora of movies about abnormally large animals eating people were made to profit off of that societal anxiety cash-cow (like Jaws, Grizzly, Lake Placid, Frogs, etc.).

Deadly Sanctuary's 禁じられた遊び卍 album.

With that being said, this same idea is being used in visuals: to exploit that uncomfortable feeling of being associated with what many many people consider to be outright evil. This isn't unique to only costumes, however. Take the title I gave this article, for example. That's actually the name of a Dué le quartz song and can be translated to "卍coordination," or "卍arrest" (I'm not 100% of the context). I don't know what the song is about, but they used a '卍' on for a reason. Is that to say that the whole band is bunch of skin heads; that your beloved "Pop Is Dead" Miyavi reads Mein Kampf every night before going to bed? Absolutely not. Other bands have also used Swastikas for typographical edginess, like Deadly Sanctuary for example.

In recent years, this sort of dress has definitely toned way way down. I haven't seen any sort of Swastika in song titles since 2002 or so and the use of uniforms has been heavily muted as well. With that being said, it is still around. For example, UnsraW revived as a 5 member band sporting pseudo-SS uniforms and armbands with their own made up symbol on them in 2010. Still pretty edgy, these costumes were much more modernized and were used as means of showing that band was still trying to be badass after a short period of struggling along. They soon dropped the military / police look for a more old-school image and then disbanded before they could make any other costume sets. This is one of the first recent accounts I've seen of SS inspired VK costumes since the early 2000's. I really do have a great appreciation for them, but they really aren't all that popular since dressing in sort-of-normal-but-not-really-street-clothes style is all the rage today.

Another recent account, which actually sparked the idea of writing this, is Ru:natic. They recently made their first music video and it allows for the view to get a close look at the band's costumes. Their bassist / vocalist wore his normal blue feathery hat, the green guitarist wore his normal Pierrot outfit, and the red one wore all black, goggles, and, low and behold, a swastika armband. I wasn't offended by this, but I was surprised to see it. The whole point of Ru:natic is to make music that sounds like it came out 10 years too late, as well as wearing costumes that are a modernized style of kote-kei.

I made a topic on a JRock forum about this whole topic, asking what people thought of it and why they felt bands used this imagery. Most of the reactions stemmed from "Shock value," to "to be edgy and radical." No one said "because they're all Nazis and horrible people." Another, more interesting, reaction was that the usage isn't even shocking anymore. That probably explains why bands stopped using Nazi motifs: visual-kei is a very hop-on-the-bandwagon industry, and if something isn't popular, don't expect anyone else to do it anymore with a handful of exceptions. I think that's the case with Ru:natic : their usage of Nazi symbolism is a sort of nostalgic gesture, a "shaking my head" moment as the visual-kei scene looks through the pictures of when it was young and angsty--kind of like how I am when I look through my old pictures where I was trying to be scene.

Summary

The use of Naziploitation in Visual-kei is merely just a shock factor: originally aimed at a more restless fanbase during the 80's and 90's. Today it is rarely used except in rare cases, usually in nostalgia styled bands. Its use was not meant to be taken seriously or to have been more than mildly offensive. However, try explaining that to your parents: I wish you the best of luck!

Upon Deeper Reflection

2011-08-09T20:25:00.000-04:00

So, I've been thinking a lot: I've been writing for over two years now and my output has been a bit stagnant in terms of quality, at least in my opinion. I feel like I could express so much more, or least write in a way to make my posts seem more interesting, if I changed my approach slightly. I've been frustrated with my presentation subconsciously for quite some time now, but now this displeasure has become more of a reality than a "back burner" issue. I think in a very linear fashion when it comes to issues I need to resolve, so making a list of points to hit on is easiest for me rather than concocting a wall of eloquent fluff for a reader to plod through and guess as to what I'm actually trying to say.

I want to be more personal with my band write-ups: focus more on what aspects I really like about them while addressing some flaws for a more well-rounded approach, rather than blindly fawning over what I think is great. In addition, I feel like I've been too snarky from time to time, distracting myself and the reader from what I actually want to accomplish.
Is listing the band's discography worth doing? A lot of my older posts are incomplete or incorrect, mostly because I took information from download blogs (I didn't really know any better), while others just list releases I've been able to find.
I think I'm going to spend more time on discussing various aspects of each band, like I've started doing before the discography sections of each new topic, and try to include a similar style when describing songs. I find writing about songs I like from whole discographies to be very tedious and overwhelming, which is why I usually only end up doing 2 or 3 song descriptions and then one paragraph of afterthoughts.
I want to try to incorporate better vocabulary in my writing: I've been trying to do this in every day life as well. Why? I want to sound intelligent, really. But I don't want to take the 5th grade attempt at it (right-click, hit "synonym") because that makes the words sound very misplaced.

I hope people still continue to find my writing to be enjoyable. I do have fun doing it and I think about what I'd say about whatever it is I'm listening to all the time. My family knows about here and asks me about it from time to time. Most of my friends know as well, but I don't believe any of them particularly care about it, nor seriously read anything I write about. Regardless, I have no expectations of become famous (the thought of that is quite facetious, actually) or a prominent voice in a very small community.

Hi, Rob.

Speaking of which, a new blog has opened up. It's called Soprano Beast and thus far it has been a mixture of visual-kei insights and other anecdotes. The author has chosen to present himself using his real name, Danny, and is a fantastic writer (much better than I could ever hope to be). He's written about other bands I haven't really featured here (both because I'm not exactly a fan of them, or I don't know them well enough to do them justice), so if you'd like a different opinion or some literature on other facets of the scene, be sure to check it out and subscribe to him. Although he comes off as being a bit sarcastic elsewhere, his posts are very genuine and heartfelt.

Well, that's all I have to say for now about that. Other than this, the only exciting VK things I have going on right now is that my grandma gave me some money for my birthday towards "those crazy games" I wanted (those CDs I said I wanted to buy in bulk off of Ebay). Although I haven't ordered a box of random stuff like I said I've been wanting to do, I did order some CDs by 弥叉 so I could have scans of it, as well as possibly better rips. We'll see how much this will cost me so I can get a bulk order in there too. I didn't really see anything too great when looking the other day, though, so maybe I'll have better luck in a few weeks.

LuLu - 被験者NO.049

2011-08-06T13:26:00.000-04:00

After a sort of long break, LuLu have returned with a new single, 被験者NO.049. Taa had to take some time off for a few health issues (kind of ironic) and now the band seems to be back in full form. I haven't listened to this single much, but from what I remember it was a bit of an improvement over Virus' tendency to drag along and is more along the lines of 胎動. To the dismay of their older fans, this single is still in the same style that their 2nd line-up has been playing rather than a sudden return to their roots.

被験者NO.049 [Single] (07/27/2011)

Purhcase at CDJapan!

01.被験者NO.049

02. サイケデリック・レイトショー

"被験者NO.049" starts off in such a way that would hint that this song is a ballad: light, almost acoustic guitar, faint vocals, and lightly tapped drumming. However, shortly after the first vocal phrase, the song turns into a typical LuLu styled song with a very Westernized guitar riff. I'm not sure how to explain how it's Westernized, but it's definitely something I could envision hearing in a late 80's, early 90's alternative rock song somewhere (genre obsessers would beg to differ, but that's just what it reminds me of). In short, it doesn't sound like a typical visual-kei guitar melody and is closer to something that I described than, say, ViViD or D=Out. The song continues along their Americana, sort of heavy, path up until the chorus where the faint style of singing returns and the song gets much lighter. Taa's voice is less shaky than in past releases and during the softer parts he almost sounds like NoGod's vocalist. After chorus is a bridge that's a glorified version of the main guitar riff before moving on into the second verse and chorus. Now that I'm listening to this more closely, "被験者NO.049" has the same feel as "神鎮痛剤," but a lot more mellow. There is a breakdown in the song with a lot of dual guitar glissando and shredding / fingering, but it doesn't last too long. After the solo is a return to the lightness of the beginning of the song with an almost Versailles like guitar arpeggio melody going on over it. All in all, this song is a strong come back for this band since a lot of their fans felt that they started to crumble after their first line-up left; I personally prefer their music in their second half much more, but I started listening to them late in the game. Taa's vocals are much more streamable, the melodies of the songs flow very well, the main guitar theme is catchy and memorable, and they didn't fall victim to TryingSoHardToBeHeavy syndrome like a lot of recent material from VK bands has been. Really impressed with this song!

"サイケデリック・レイトショー," (psychedelic night show) has a different feel than the A-side of the single: it uses one guitar to play a high pitched, bouncy, melody in synch with the drumming as the other guitar plays a more wild riff, similar to Megaromania's "Apocalypse," to counter it, and bass the echos the second guitar, giving the song an almost dance-like (by dance, I mean disco) feel. There is also some doubling going on in the vocals for a trippy feeling, although it could have done a bit better. The chorus of the song is very forgettable and is slow and heartfelt, making it really stick out of the song like a sore thumb. The guitar solo isn't very psychedelic, but I honestly wasn't expecting it to be. Overall, this is more or less a flop B-side because of the chorus. They took a cool idea and then ruined it with a lame melody. To add to that, Western fans already have expectations as to what something "psychedelic" should sound like and LuLu were pretty far off. It's like a German band dying their hair purple and green and singing in broken Japanese and naming their songs something like "Harajuku no Sidewinder wo Aishite" trying to pass off as authentic Japanese rock: to people who know what kind of atmosphere they're trying to emulate, it isn't going to go over well. Oh, wait...

In conclusion, the title track of this single is very very good, and the B-side could have been very good but it was poorly executed and stumbled into territory that they clearly are unfamiliar with. I'm not trying to say that I'm a master at all things psychedelic, actually, I hate anything psychedelic, but it's about as bad as Lycaon's attempt at jazz.

Two Years

2011-07-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

I've been doing this crap for two years now! Wow...that seems like such a long time, but in reality it isn't much at all. You've probably noticed that I only write in spurts and then have long, dearth-like, periods of silence. Well, I'm in a bit of a dry-spell at the moment, but soon I shall be writing more.

Coincidentally, I write more when I have 203052052 things to do, but when I have free time I just sit at my computer and do nothing productive. To add to "doing nothing productive," here's a list of all of the bands that have disbanded since I've started writing about them!

-Deluhi
-UnsraW
-XOVER
-Dio-Distraught Overlord-
-My Heaven's Luck Sisters
-Vidoll

And the hiatus ones:

-Chaos System
-E'm~Grief~
-Megaromania (not on hiatus currently, but they were from March 2010~ May 2010)

Not too bad, no? This is probably because I tend to write about bands that are already broken up. I do that for a few reasons, but I'll give the philosophical one first: if they're dibanded they won't get much promotion and a lot of bands that are long gone have wonderful music that I want to expose more people to. The not philosophical reason is because they don't release any material when they're disbanded, thus I don't have to follow them! However, there are several ones that have suddenly decided to come back, like BLOOD, and Phantasmagoria.

Also, you may have noticed that some bands have released material but I haven't written about them, like Exist Trace. This isn't because I haven't noticed, believe me, I have, but it's because I don't really have much of an interest in the band. I should probably just edit the original post and add to their discography and then make a small not saying that they've been updated, but instead I just let it sit there to collect dust, just like a lot of visual-kei download sites!

Instead of continuing to wallow about how lazy I am, I'm going to take the time to thank my readers for visiting and keeping up with me. Several people have contacted me outside of comments here and have given me feedback or requested I write about certain bands (although, that usually doesn't happen since I say I will but don't.... ^^;;;;;;; ), so it's always good to hear from you! I've also received negative feedback since I'm apparently annoying and full of myself; hell, someone even threatened to stab me.Oh well, I still love all of you anyway.

Thank you again for reading!

-Seraphim

Versailles - Holy Grail

2011-07-17T16:04:00.001-04:00

Versailles released their 3rd full length album on June 15th, 2011, with a mixed reception. The album was released in three types: a deluxe edition that came with a photobook, a poster, and a DVD with the PV for "Masquerade" in 5 versions; a limited edition that came with a DVD for the PVs of "Philia," "Destiny-The Lovers-," "Masquerade," and "Vampire;" and the regular edition that just came with the CD. This is their second major album and I personally liked it, but a lot of people didn't and felt it was boring. Surprisingly enough, several of the comments I've seen from people who didn't like the album love the band, and those who actually thought this album was good or decent don't even like Versailles. Being my extreme-adversed self, I am in a happy medium on the album: I like direction it took, saw aspects that the improved on, but didn't feel like this was the best album they've put out. With that being said, I never consider anything this band puts out to be definitive for them: every release has songs I can't stand on them and ever release has songs I love to death. Overall, this was not the Holy Grail of visual-kei, but it was a continuation of the band's frilly goodness.

Holy Grail [Album] (06/15/2011)

Purchase at CDJapan!

01. Masquerade

02. Philia

03. Thanatos

04. Flowery

05. Remember Forever

06. Destiny -The Lovers-

07. Dry Ice Scream!! [Remove Silence]

08. Threshold

09. Judicial Noir

10. Love will be born again

11. Vampire

12. Faith & Decision

13. Theme of Holy Grail

"Masquerade" was one of two featured songs on this album. I really like this song, but I alternate between "loooooooooooove" and "this is pretty good," depending on my mood. This is the band's closest attempt at being Western symphonic metal (although, I guess I should say symphonic power metal? Power wave? Power core? French-core!). I'd love to share the PV with you, but Warner keeps taking them down: which is completely stupid, by the way. The point of a PROMOTIONAL video, is to promote your work. How the fuck do you expect people to find out about it if you keep taking down legitimate samples of it? Also, you're not losing sales by having it up: if someone were going to rip it from youtube (praying for them btw) then they probably will also download it from jajajajavkismuchosex.blogspot.com soon after for a higher quality. In conclusion, those people you're afraid of weren't buying a damn thing to start with, with or without hearing it on youtube, so stop ruining it for the people who bought your crap in the "best fan ever" edition. /rant

Where was I? Oh, that's right: "Masquerade" has a lot of cool Symphony-X (example) styled things going on here, specifically the Gregorian chants, the epic movie score soundtrack atmosphere, and the change of musical tone from section to section. The song starts off with the chanting, awesome instrumental coordination between the guitars and the orchestral elements, and a very foreboding atmosphere. The first vocal lines are clearly front and center, sung in calm, yet forceful, manner up until the end of the phrase where Kamijo crescendos into a bellowing vibrato (more controlled than past examples) before setting the music into another repeat. The next line is sung in a similar fashion, but moves in at a much faster pace. Surprisingly enough, there isn't a double verse structure in this song: after the second line the song goes right into the chorus. In comparison to the darkness presented in the first theme, the bridge to the chorus is fluffy, fluttery, and spews rose petals all over: a "normal" Versailles song. This is the part where the song samples came from: it sounds a bit like "Princess," English and all, mixed with the walking horse pulse that was at the beginning of "Silent Knight" before exploding into the main idea of the song. Much faster paced, has a better melody, and doesn't sound as begrudging for Kamijo to sing, the chorus of "Masquerade" is very nice. I love the jubilant feeling it gives off, as well as how there are layers of backup voices that coo in rhythm with what else is going on, not to mention the nod to their almost speed metal days of "The Revenant Choir." After the chorus, the song returns to the dark theme found at the beginning of the song, along with the chanting, as the music builds up into the bass solo. What? Yep! Masashi gets another solo: in the video it shows him doing some impressive fingering (it's a playing style, I promise) on the high end of his instrument, although it's hard to hear since the shrill guitars overshadow the high octave, yet caloric, timbre of his bass. While this solo is going, Hizaki and Teru are playing in that pseudo-acoustic style that is fairly common in older visual-kei music, mixed with the atmospheric playing that the band started using in "PRINCE." After Masashi's solo is finished, there is the regular guitar solo that is surprisingly short with lots of trills and plays on a variation of the main song instead of being all shredding arpeggios. The end of the solo marks a return to the bridge and chorus. The ending of the song is a gradual collapse of the opening theme where Kamijo blurts out "LIKE A MASKARAAYY LIKE A MASKARAAAY." Overall, I found this song to be really impressive and that samples of it were not anything like the whole song at all. Interesting how the true nature of the song was hidden and only hearing a glimpse of it is not enough to make a judgment on the whole thing...kind of like a masquerade.

"Philia" is more or less the same as the single version. "Remastered" or "Rerecorded" wasn't even in the title, so I wouldn't be surprised if they just copied and pasted it in.

The next track on the album is "Thanatos." This song is unique for a few reasons: the first is that it was written by Masashi, making it their first song not written by their "normal" composers. The second is that it mixes the typical Versailles formula with a lot of new elements. For example the song starts off with a trip-hop except, mixed with the sound of a starting car. That's highly unusual for Versailles and it took me a little while to get used to it. The strange pulse this introduction has continues subtly throughout the song, but the rest of the music is more typical for the band. Overall, "Thanatos" is a mid-tempoed power ballad and isn't a high speed, heavy song. There are several sections that use really frail sounding guitar while other sections have guitar that have the warped and echo-y quality of the solo of "Gekkakou." The vocals lines in this song are slow and smooth to mix well over the subtle complexity of the music that's going on underneath. There is a vocal line in the bridge that I really like: I can't make out what he's saying, but Kamijo mumbles something in the background in such a way that makes the build up for the chorus very satisfying. The chorus itself is alright, honestly not my favorite: it's slow and kind of plods along like someone whose had a very hard day at work. There is a grand crescendo in there that doesn't have as nice of an execution as "MASQUERADE," but it isn't as bad as how Kamijo performs them live. After chorus there is a small, progressive bass solo, followed by a guitar solo that slightly mimics that theme. After this section follows the actual guitar solo which is sounds a whole lot like a variation on "Silent Knight's" main theme. Actually, listening to it again, it is actually a direct sample of that solo. Why did they do that? I'm not entirely sure: they've actually reused melodies a few times in this album from other songs. Before the "HERP NOT ORIGINAL" police come, I think there's some evidence to form an inference on why this happened: maybe "Silent Knight" isn't cannon in Versailles' story? Maybe "Thanatos" is chronologically next to "Silent Knight?" Maybe "Thanatos'" lyrics point to the idea behind that song? Who knows other than Kamijo? Not you nor I. With that being said, this song really did give off a very "Silent Knight" vibe to it based on how the drumming was played and the overall pulse of the song. I liked this song a lot though, more than when I first heard it. It shows that they can take what they've already done and build upon it to make something new and better. Some people view "Silent Knight," their first instrumental, as a band practice session that was recorded and given a title. I guess the band noticed this and tried to use this song, or rather have Masashi re-interpret the song since he wasn't around when it was written, and say "No, we want you to take this piece seriously." Another thing I liked about "Thanatos" is that there are a lot of complex bassl ines in it that aren't hidden or lost amongst other voices like a lot of Jasmine's lines were. Although I do appreciate Jasmine's playing, he wasn't very forceful and didn't really shine all that often. In this song, Masashi was able to write diffiicult, yet meaningful (which isn't always easy to do), bass lines without being overly flaunty and direct, "*hand in your face*, ' look, here's my bass solo'" (kind of like the song Megaromania's bassist wrote).

The fourth track on the album is "Flowery," one of two songs written by TERU. A lot of people were upset that TERU only wrote two (really only 1 and an instrumental) song on this album since most Versailles fans are avid listeners of stuff he's written, but I think that the fact that he had minimal input in this album is kind of a good thing: it allows for the band to have more of a variety of songs instead of a typical TERU rush song. With that being said, TERU's writing has gotten much much better and has had a lot of Spanish influences lately, this song included. On the contrary. Hizaki's writing has gotten progressively worse since "Philia." "Philia" wasn't bad, but it wasn't what most people hold Versailles up to. Anyway, "Flowery" is a fast tempoed song with swirling guitar riffs, orchestration that mimics the guitar parts instead of just being enough filler for some people to consider the band "symphonic metal," and gives off an aura that is a mixture of Lareine and Aikyaru. The verse of the song has fast guitar and bass with transitions that are very legato in comparison."Flowery's" chorus is very upbeat and joyful with a hint of Flamingo influence. At the end of the chorus there is a triplet pattern in the vocals that sounds like the musical equivalent to falling down the stairs: one of my favorite parts of the song! After the first chorus a brief bass melody, then a keyboard solo before returning to the 2nd verse. I would also like to point that the drumming in this song is pretty impressive as well: the bass pedal work is very intricate and there enough quick fillers to be tasteful, but not overbearing. After the 2nd chorus is the guitar solo that flows like a typical Versailles solo: one person plays a slightly rehashed solo from all of their other songs, then it turns into a dueling guitar solo, then it dies down into normalcy for the rest of the song. Overall, "Flowery" was surprisngly complex for what it's name implied it would sound like.

"Remember Forever" is the first of two awful ballads on this album. I've never liked Versailles' ballads, but these two were exceptionally boring. The song starts off with a soppy 90's sit-com meets the Kisaki Project guitar melody, then stumbles into "Serenade 3.0" with a bit of "Sympathy" sans piano-forte. The chorus is pretty cheesy with lots of loud singing and English. "IIIII REMEMBA DISU PRACE!!!" There really isn't much going on in this song musically other than Kamijo and, even with my anti-ballad standpoint, this is one of those songs you just impatiently wave you cell phone in the air during until the 6 minutes and 37 seconds are up. Please stop doing this. Oh, and the a Capella breakdown towards the end just takes the cake. Phil Collins is shaking and crying.

"Destiny -The Lovers-" is similar to what they did with "Prince:" added a bunch of cool symphonic elements to the start of the song for the album version. I actually really like the editions to the song, but they don't blend with the rest of the song at all, really. Aside from that, I don't think that they changed much of anything else. Some of the vocal parts are a bit cleaner, but other than that you won't like this song if you didn't like the original version.

"Dry Ice Scream!! [Remove Silence]" has a really stupid title. Hizaki, what the hell? This is probably why a lot of people just laughed at the song without really listening to it...that, and probably the horrible cheap synth used in it. BUT LOOKING PASSED ALL OF THAT is a really really good song that channels Hizaki Grace Project. For quite a while I've wanted Versailles to do a song like this, and my prayers to Jasmine have been answered! The song begins with a mysterious sounding chime pattern followed by a dark sounding guitar riff. Then the synth starts: this is like Rin's lame songs bad. However, they stop pretty quickly, so you only have to deal with it for a few seconds. In the verse, Kamijo's voice is distorted and sounds rather desperate. There are also D-like gang vocals going on every so often, and throw in some harpsichord for good measure. Following that are sforzando patterns that jut out musically like a misplaced knife, but thankfully Kamijo doesn't crackle or squeak during them. This song does have a double verse pattern, but the second verse is a different melody than the first. This brings us to the chorus: it sounds a lot like "Philosophy" or "Solitude" from HGP, just done by Versailles, in terms of chord progression and phrasing. After the chorus is another gang vocal section, mixed with Kamijo whispering "Remove Silence" x3 . The guitar solo is a typical Hizaki solo that could have easily been found in his Dignity of Crest album. Overall, "Dry Ice Scream!!" is a diamond in the ruff. I didn't expect to like it, but this ended up being one of my favorite songs from the album and Versailles as a whole.

"Threshold" is the only other song on the album written by TERU. It's an instrumental that sounds like a movie score, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately it's nothing more than a single guitar riff over and over again with Yuki slamming on the cymbals every so often. There is a lot of good symphonic work being done here, and the rehash of "God Palace's" melody is very cool, but I would have liked to see, well hear, more being done with this. Kudos for bringing back the Gregorian chants in this song to make that idea a uniform one for this album, but they're very subtle.

"Judicial Noir" makes a return on this album, much to the dismay of a few people. I actually still like this song and was happy to see this on here instead of "Libido" or "Glowing Butterfly." However, the sloppy parts in this song weren't fixed at all! That's very disappointing. It's the same thing as the original version, so read my full review of that on the "Philia" review.

"Love Will Be Born Again" is the other ballad on the album. It's also pretty boring but not as corny as "Remember Forever." All of it is in English, which really upset a lot of people, but I don't mind the language (hell, I speak it, so what does it matter?). This song is much prettier than the other ballad and has a bit of a Lareine flavor to it, but definitely not for me.

Next up is "Vampire." I really liked this song for a few reasons: the harpsichord parts, the exciting guitar and bass melodies, and just how it cool sounds. "Vampire" was written to be the theme song to a movie, so it got it's own (boring) PV as well. I love the main guitar riff to this song because of how unique it sounds in relation to the rest of Versailles' is work: kind of like how "Sforzando" is. The harpsichord lines in this song remind people of Moi Dix Mois (as did Versailles first mini-album, so that doesn't mean much) but, to me, they sound a lot more like Juka's "Saint Croix." Anyway, the chorus of this song is a bit bland, but the instrumental parts in the rest of the song make up for it big time. They're not all that complex and progressive, but they are rather intricate and just sound very exciting. The song comes equipped with an acoustic breakdown, audible bass, and English free of charge (only English offered is "JEZ US CRIST. JEZ US CRIST")! Very good.

"Faith and Decision" is the epic song of the album. It's over 16 minutes long and is incredibly boring. They pulled a Dream Theater and had 7 minutes of music before the vocals even start, but instead of having everything flow it sounds like a long instrumental with another Versailles song glued on top of it. I can't remember any of the song though, so I can't tell you which parts are which. I do remember only liking the first 6 minutes of the song or so. This is a "listen to once" song for me.

"Theme of the Holy Grail" sounds like a Lareine instrumental to me, but people keep saying it sounds like an X-Japan song since it's symphonic. I guess that's true because Yoshiki invented the full orchestra and was the first person to try forming a metal band. Without him we wouldn't even like Japan in this country! This instrumental doesn't have the perpetual effect that "Sound in Gate" did, but it still sounds nice anyway.

Overall, this album had a lot of good points: stronger bass, compositional experimentation, doesn't sound like Jubilee 2 nor Noble 4.2 , and has a few memorable songs on it. I liked this album more on one listen than I liked Jubilee in months of listening, so I guess I prefer this album. I wish that they didn't have some many songs that were singles on there and that the epic song wasn't a complete disaster. Oh well.

[[New Costumes]]

Love the new costumes. I know, I say that about every Versailles costume set, but I mean it this time. Hizaki isn't in red (!), Teru is back to wearing short shorts, Kamijo is in red, Yuki doesn't look like he's wearing the leftovers, and Masashi has feathers. I love how each progressing set gets more and more intricate. I have a soft spot for overly elaborate, so these are perfect to me.

~*†*~S_VK~*†*~

Omnibus Review - NEW AGE CULTURE～第二楽章～

Omnibus Review - Emergency Express '93 Dead Angle 死角を突け！

Jasmine You Tribute

Favorites of 2011

UNDER CODE EnTicket Sales

Ballad

Still Alive

Lynch. - I Believe in Me

Rin-The End of Corruption World- : Independent "MAZE" + Bonus Singles + Ambient Cosmo

Maria Cross

Some Updates

Dir En Grey - My Thoughts and Other Mental Purges

The Kiryu: Kisai

-OZ- : Souga

Cu[be] - Twilight ST★R

Megaromania - Quintessence Voyage

Globalizing Visual-kei

CD Wishlist

It's my birthday

La Fẽerie

卍搦め : Naziploitation in Visual-kei

Upon Deeper Reflection

LuLu - 被験者NO.049

Two Years

Versailles - Holy Grail

~†~S_VK~†~