Jump to content

Leaderboard


Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/24/18 in all areas

  1. 9 points
    Kyo, if you’re reading this, I hope you leak The Insulated World and PM me the link. Thanks. Its all set, guys, they’ll read this and get right on it!
  2. 4 points
    Their new mini album will be released on 2018.11.14. (CD + DVD : 2500 yen + taxes)
  3. 4 points
    -NOVA-

    THE THIRTEEN 2 EPs release

    I love this ❤️
  4. 3 points
    Kizu just released various announcements through a YouTube video and Twitter. Amongst them, today's live at Zepp TOKYO's DVD and their new single 「0」will be released on 2018.12.11 with two original songs 1.0 2.悪い夢 The band will also perform at Tokyo Kinema Club on January 11th, then go on with a one-man tour 「天罰」X「天誅」in Osaka (天罰) at IMP Hall on March 31st and Tokyo (天誅) on April 7th at Kokusai Forum C.
  5. 3 points
    gonna be checking here every two hours or so I NEED INSULATED WORLD TO DROP its gonna take ALL my strength not to skip right to aka tbh
  6. 3 points
    I guess they are trying to break into K-pop with blackface.
  7. 3 points
    [lineup] Vo.? Gt.依癒 (iyu) Gt.天 (ten) Ba.ルゼ (ruze) Dr.煌騎 (koki) (ex-暁月 (Kyogetsu))
  8. 2 points
  9. 2 points
    Dude wtf???? New look is amazing!!! Excited!
  10. 2 points
    Zeus

    Kisaki Drama 2k18

    Having just caught up on this entire controversy, this is a very disturbing and disgusting thing to read. I'm not going to pass judgement on the man just yet, since this is still in its infancy and there are more facts to discover, and clarifying questions that I can ask for days to both parties, but my gut feeling says this incident isn't going to disappear (unlike the court case of a certain other band member who was the center of attention earlier this year). If the police escalate the situation - and I see no reason not to given the mountain of evidence provided - KISAKI is as good as done. This isn't his first brush with the law, but this may be the scandal that not only ends his career, but buries it so that no one will give him a second tenth shot. Whether you want to collect his remaining merchandise or burn it in a bonfire, this isn't a good thing for visual kei. We shook off another pedophile and a murderer in just this year alone, and now there's this. What a way to strip the glitz and foundation off of the scene in such an unceremonious way, especially from someone who has been seen as a pillar in the scene for almost two decades. It makes you really think about who else in the scene has skeletons in their closet.
  11. 2 points
  12. 2 points
    Saishu

    The Bad Boys of Visual Kei

    Sorry, but assaulting women and doing anything of a sexual nature with minors is far more heinous than tax evasion.
  13. 2 points
    Tanishi

    BUCK-TICK

    One thing that amazes me about this band is how despite being in the scene for 30 years, they still release better/more interesting music then 99% of other Japanese rock bands. There's only a handful of bands in the world who have kept up a streak that long without turning crap. Their last two albums have been really great imo.
  14. 2 points
    Shion8

    BUCK-TICK

    That's also one of the things about them that I really adore. I know it sounds childish, but for me the image of a "band" is one of a bunch of good friends making music and having fun together. So, I think it's really off-putting if other musicians admit to not getting along with their band members (like for example Takanori Nishikawa in the interview with them from 2014 said: B-T are basically the only ones who still do everything together). Them "finding" each other was truly a blessing. And I mean, managing to stick with the same guys for over 30 years also confirms that their personalities can't be that bad. 😊 I agree 100%, lol. Personally, I like their earlier work the most: Seventh Heaven, Aku no Hana and Kurutta Taiyou are absolutely perfect. My favourite songs are probably Angelic Conversation and Dress.
  15. 2 points
  16. 2 points
    SARRMATH new mini-album, "SARRMATH2" will cost 2500 yen and will also come with a booklet. support recording members: Gt.Tak (ex-Calmando Qual) Gt.アイト (aito) (fesFE[M]) Gt.山田大学 (Meat Garden) Ba.れの‏ (reno) (ex-Tokami) Ba.π(Meat garden) [tracklist] 01:Nuclear 02:連鎖 03:変身願望 04:VIO 05:壊れた顔 06:君と出会えたこの場所から
  17. 1 point
    Shion8

    BUCK-TICK

    I was surprised to see that there was no topic on Buck-Tick so far, seeing as they're one of the pioneers of Visual Kei and have been going strong for over 30 years now. Who else listens to B-T? What do you think of them? 櫻井 敦司 [SAKURAI ATSUSHI] On Vocal DATE OF BIRTH:7th March 1966 BLOOD TYPE:O BIRTHPLACE:FUJIOKA CITY, GUNMA HEIGHT / WEIGHT:177cm / 65kg ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:PISCES 今井 寿 [IMAI HISASHI] On GUITAR DATE OF BIRTH:21st October 1965 BLOOD TYPE:O BIRTHPLACE:FUJIOKA CITY, GUNMA HEIGHT / WEIGHT:175cm / 58kg ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:LIBRA 星野 英彦 [HOSHINO HIDEHIKO] On GUITAR DATE OF BIRTH:16th June 1966 BLOOD TYPE:A BIRTHPLACE:FUJIOKA CITY, GUNMA HEIGHT / WEIGHT:179cm / 66kg ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:GEMINI 樋󠄀口 豊 [HIGUCHI YUTAKA] On BASS DATE OF BIRTH:24th January 1967 BLOOD TYPE:A BIRTHPLACE:TAKASAKI CITY, GUNMA HEIGHT / WEIGHT:162cm / 50kg ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:AQUARIUS ヤガミ・トール [YAGAMI TOLL] On DRUMS DATE OF BIRTH:19th August 1962 BLOOD TYPE:A BIRTHPLACE:TAKASAKI CITY, GUNMA HEIGHT / WEIGHT:170cm / 55kg ASTROLOGICAL SIGN:LEO
  18. 1 point
    The visual-kei scene is full of its own quirks and oddities that make it stand out from any other subculture in the music world; these hallmarks also appear to resonate at a national level, in spite of the culture stemming from several metropolitan hubs, each with their own small variants. One of these traits, for better or for worse, is how willing the scene is to reference itself. Since 2013, “willing” has become the incorrect word. “Obsessed,” “addicted,” “driven,” “obligated”; these words seem to fit the bill closer. References to older material is not uncommon in any medium of art, but visual-kei takes it four steps further to emulation. Today is the day we talk about homage-系 (Kei), kids. “Homage-kei” is a made up word. It isn’t a real category to anyone else other than people who use this board, to be honest, but it is an apt descriptor for this phenomenon. This is when a band reuses melodies, thematic, aesthetics, and even titles from an older, typically more successful, band or bands. However: their music also contains many original elements, which sets them apart from being a literal cover band. It also needs to be more than a single occurrence as well: Dir en grey “””borrowing””” the main riff of Luna Sea’s “G” is not enough, but borrowing the front-man of 黒夢 (Kuroyume)’s aesthetic for several music videos is. There are several bands that would fall under this umbrella from the late 2000’s. Two I want to touch on are Ru:Natic and the infamous Vajra. The first was one of the earliest examples I can think of that tried to revive the aggressive and bloody punk-meets-goth-meets-pop style popularized in the mid-90’s. They wore black clothes, had neon hair, and sang about being a crazy person invited to dinner parties that they had no business attending. While they weren’t the only group doing this (re: Sadie’s Mary and Sadie’sla), they were the first to start reusing melodies from older bands, namely La:Sadie’s, Madeth Gray’ll, and Aliene Ma’riage. There was even a hard-to-come-by single that was a reinterpretation of Baiser’s “undersea” and they had a demo tape that contained covers from some of the bands previously mentioned. They even lost a bunch of members, changed record labels, and released a lot of rare material: all cornerstones of “what an old school band does.” In my memory of the scene, this was the first time we got a real taste of bands reinventing the 90s sound that many people liked, but had fallen out of favor. Vajra was fun for the wrong reasons. Their costumes were kind of similar to UnsraW and thematically they were a bit too close to Dir en grey for the fan base at the time’s comfort. One of their singles was apparently a near 1:1 facsimile of another Dir en grey track and that caused a shitstorm on last.fm . For days people were arguing back and forth about whether it was a copy or not. Our own dear @Zeus requested someone overlay it with the original so we could see how similar it was. I personally did not have a horse in that race, but for hours or entertainment seeing the bickering between the hordes of people in outrage vs that one person who apparently went to their shows regularly and gave sympathetic updates about how this was affecting the band personally. Take his with a grain of salt, as it is only a Western interpretation of what happened and I cannot speak to how it was received by fans who could actually go see them in person. Regardless of where you stood in this fight, history’s take is that it did not end well for Vajra; they broke up shortly after only to be remembered as “that band that tried to be Diru.” Both examples were, in retrospect, unsuccessful. Ru:Natic, in their heyday, missed the boat on people eating up old-school revival acts by about 3 years, then only played again in one-off events. Vajra, on the other hand, failed for a couple of reasons. The first is that the fan base wasn’t ready for their style of tribute-meets-original-works. Secondly, there wasn’t enough time passed between what they performed and when their source material was released. Based on later act’s success, time helps prevent “a homage” from being seen as “a rip-off.” Earlier I had mentioned 2013 being the starting point for “homage-kei,” in a more official (but still unofficial) sense. That’s because グリヴァー (GRIEVA) happened and caused a shift in the scene. For those unfamiliar, Grieva’s whole schtick was that they dressed like a modern version of 1998 Dir en grey and made music that sounded like it could have came from from the same time frame. However, after people got a hold of their first album, it became alarming clear that it was one big tribute to “Gauze” (Dir en grey’s first album). A lot of songs “borrowed” the melodies of Gauze-era songs, their music videos were kind of like high school kids reenacting their idol’s work for a class project, and you were even able to draw parallels to the lyrical content. Grieva handled this clearly stating their theme is to bring back the feeling of the old days, and even fabricated a whole interview about how they went on a quest for band members that held the same ideals. Unlike Vajra, when people confronted them by saying “You’re just stealing,” them saying “Yeah, but that’s like the point???” it worked. Granted, there were plenty of people who weren’t buying this act and loathed the whole idea, but there was more than enough support for it to keep them at the forefront of the scene up until 2015. In fact, it worked so well that their label made it happen AGAIN, but this time with a band that pretended to be The GazettE and another that mixed all different concepts from the eroguro scene and western nü-metal together. This was the first time in visual-kei where blatantly copying on purpose wasn’t met with more backlash than praise. Several other acts spawned at the same time, due to a strong desire for “bands that sound like old school groups.” This was in part due to Cell, an offshoot of La’Mule that made somewhat similar music, Lin, a Kisaki band that came after he swore he was retired, and a general sense of boredom from the run-of-the-mill bands that dressed like host boys. Other groups that come to mind include Gauzes (a La’Mule homage-kei group), DEZERT (their first singles were nü-metal interpretations of groups like D’espairsRay and Nega), and AvelCain (who took more influence from groups like Lamiel than their fan base wanted to admit). Suddenly, it was cool to be like someone else. Eventually, the hype waned a bit. Grieva started writing their own music and then eventually split after being worked to death by their label. It was mostly the same case for AvelCain, Cell went on break because frontman Kon can’t keep focused on one thing, DEZERT found (and then killed) their own style, and most of the other old school sounding bands weren’t big enough to really make a lasting impact. This was the death of homage-kei. Or was it??? Interestingly enough, in recent years, this scene metamorphosed along with the scene at large. We started seeing groups now begin to “take influence from” more recent acts (which I guess are still old if you’re younger than 20??). We had メディーナ (Mediena), who took a lot from Phantasmagoria, ガンミ (Ganmi), which sounded like an early 2000s band without a real influence to pin point, and Mamireta, who tried to restart the subculture in high gear with their refreshing takes on 蜉蝣 (Kagerou)’s music. There are even big acts forming side projects that “sound like a 90’s band!!”, like Diaura(who are not guilt-free themselves, when it comes to Pierrot worship) and ぞんび (Zonbi). Even Gossip-ゴシップ- went from copying The GazettE to emulating their label owner’s old band (albeit at gunpoint (allegedly!)). It is worth noting that another significant change: aside from a few examples, the current trend has become "I want to sound like ___," rather than "guess which ___ songs I combined!!!" Arguably, the style should have started with this mentality, but controversy creates buzz. Unoriginality in the visual kei scene is nothing new. We even have an entire thread dedicated to specific instances where someone took a riff or theme and matches it to the exact source material it came from. But homage-kei really takes it to the next level. Bands want you to know who they’re sounding like. Could it be for nostalgia sales? Or because recreating a well liked motif makes it easier for someone to like a new creation (they’re already emotionally invested)? Or is it just a lazy cash grab, which requires 40% less effort to produce material? Maybe it is fulfilling a fantasy to reenact what you love about your idols? In spite of how much I adore everything mentioned throughout this article, I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that it is probably a mix of all four.
  19. 1 point
    PUNCH RECORDS / DOPE. will release the album japan-wide on October 15th. Madmans Esprit - 無意識の意識化
  20. 1 point
    I suppose Dir en grey is enough of a phenomenon that Japanese people have a different sense regarding copyright laws when it comes to them.
  21. 1 point
    I really doubt it. I don’t think any of them even speak English at a functional level.
  22. 1 point
  23. 1 point
    Lucky Japanese fans I am so hyped for tomorrow tbh. DEG better come through.
  24. 1 point
    Pflaumenberg

    THE THIRTEEN 2 EPs release

    The drummer in the PV and song is Ryo (ex-girugamesh). Great Track!
  25. 1 point
    I hope we finally get some recorded versions of the songs they've been performing since they formed.
  26. 1 point
    Pretty sure it's not blackface... I'm hyped, a live DVD is great news.
  27. 1 point
  28. 1 point
    Excellent news, these guys are on a roll recently.
  29. 1 point
  30. 1 point
  31. 1 point
    lichtlune

    THE THIRTEEN 2 EPs release

    Really good!
  32. 1 point
    hyura

    THE THIRTEEN 2 EPs release

    I somehow like the direction they are going. Definitely want to listen to the full EP.
  33. 1 point
  34. 1 point
    Thanks, I didn't know that. When I think of anime music I think of uverworld or Alice 9, so it was hard for me to think of DeG doing something like that
  35. 1 point
    Paraph

    BUCK-TICK

    Such a great band with so many bops. I think I became super into them when ROMANCE released, which is still one of my favourite songs to this day. Atsushi is also probably one of the most attractive men alive.
  36. 1 point
    karai · ebi

    BUCK-TICK

    My only regret is that I wasn't able to find them sooner, I missed out on so many years of listening just cause of my own incompetence in searching in the past. Despite this I feel like I've already been listening to them for years, I think Atsushi's voice has a very nostalgic tone to it, I'm not really good at explaining. They're my favorite band as a flip side to my fav metal band. I'm really moved by the friendship and connection between all the members, even most marriages don't work that long or smoothly. Even more so when I read Imai was looking into a medium that they were all destined to meet from a past life haha. I guess aside from loving Atsushi's lyrics, style and what he's overcome /B-T experimentation, I really just envy to have such friends. The same with the twin flame like situation Atsushi had with Issay. Think I could write too much about what they mean to me now so I'll cut it, but- I was torn a bit between Six/Nine, but I'm sure now that Darker than Darkness is my favorite album, from cover art to end track. (I had even wrote an exact lyric from DtD on an art piece a few months before hearing it, it felt surreal by chance lol.)
  37. 1 point
  38. 1 point
    Paraph

    Kisaki Drama 2k18

    Can we all just take a moment to realize that KISAKI was the main face behind many of the bands he was involved in. KamiUta from Phantasmagoria literally depicts him as God. If all this is true and KISAKI really is the scum of the Earth then I don’t know about you but it makes me uncomfortable listening to or watching some of his material. It gives me serious narcissistic/sociopathic psycho vibes if all true. edit: looks like many posts were deleted so this one now lacks context and looks super random..
  39. 1 point
    Aw, Sui and Misery are getting back together again ❤️
  40. 1 point
    I'm 99% sure Dr.煌騎 (Koki) is ex-暁月 (Kyogetsu). (Same birthday, blood type, and 9/25 being his "last live")
  41. 1 point
    Paraph

    Your last music-related buy!

    I hadn't bought anything visual kei-related for about 8 years so I kind of went a bit crazy recently collecting things I'd always wanted, but never got around to buying previously. The Candy Spooky Theater - SPOOKYWONDERLAND The Candy Spooky Theater - LIVING DEAD SPOOKY DOLL'S FAMILY IN THE ROCK'N CHILD'S SPOOK SHOW BABY !! The Candy Spooky Theater - Murderland The Candy Spooky Theater - PRINCE OF DARKNESS SCISSOR - FINAL CUT (DVD) Spook Jack - SNOW THE DARK Spook Jack - PERSONIFIED PAIN VELVET EDEN - ningyou shoukan VELVET EDEN - Street of ALICE VELVET EDEN - SAD MASK (VHS) VELVET EDEN - sute neko VELVET EDEN - Double Twelve (signed) VELVET EDEN - Witch on flames VELVET EDEN - film noir (DVD) VELVET EDEN - Behind the tales (DVD | signed) ZIZ - GIFT recently added: MALICE MIZER - bara no seidou (first press) Dir en grey - VULGAR (first press) Dir en grey - GAUZE (first press) Dir en grey - Withering to death (first press) Dir en grey - MACABRE (first press) 12012 - bell salem (digipak) 12012 - Knight mare (digipak) 12012 - shin ~deep~ (digipak) Karen - reset ~a revolving lantern~ Karen - Actually Karen - Reincarnation Karen - mellow ~sou no senritsu~ (DVD)
  42. 1 point
    Paraph

    Kisaki Drama 2k18

    This is where I draw the line, though. I've never felt this way before with any artist scandal and shrugged off his tax evasion nonsense. I'm not going to turn a blind eye to scum if these allegations prove true. As much as I liked some of his music. Also, it's 4 discs total y'all, lets not assume I'm about to throw out his entire discography or something. I'm not some kind of moral elitist thinking everyone who doesn't is stupid. It's just a decision I'm making in regards to what I want represented in my collection. These allegations are no joking matter to me. There are serious long term-lifelong mental repercussions to the victims involved here if true that it makes me nauseous even thinking about it.
  43. 1 point
    nomemorial

    DIMLIM

    I'd really just like to find more VK bands in this vein. Their melodic side really does feel like mid-era Diru to me, but it melds really well with the style they're doing overall. Doesn't make me feel like I should just "go listen to another djent band" because the music is actually different and appeals to different things that I like. Furthermore, I just like that they're stylistically committed. I know when I put this on I'm getting a heavy album, not an album with 6 metalcore tracks and 6 tracks of wonky circus VK.
  44. 1 point
    secret_no_03

    Your last music-related buy!

    After being delayed for over a week I got my second order of DĂLLE stuff from Dorothy&Co. DĂLLE - NOT IN LOVE (Single) DĂLLE - BREATHE LOST AND LUST (Single) DĂLLE - This iz Beautiful Brutalizm 2016-2018 (Music Video collection DVD) It also came with a photo book they gave out at the Christmas show last year, a photo book made for the DVD, a ticket (which shocked me quite frankly; their tickets always look so cool.) and a flyer for upcoming events.
  45. 1 point
    VkBrutaliaN

    Your last music-related buy!

    JILUKA – Metamorphose (ltd. edition)
  46. 1 point
  47. 1 point
    suji

    The Bad Boys of Visual Kei

    then commit tax fraud x
  48. 1 point
  49. 1 point
    Elazmus

    New band MIDGARD have formed

    In the group shot does the black filter mask look like an odd beard to anyone from afar?
  50. 1 point
    Great news! (Happy to see Eve here; 'eve-writing-everything' era Avelcain was my favorite Avelcain)
×
×
  • Create New...