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Dir en Grey have always been a point of contention for me. As a visual newbie, I was intimidated by their extreme aesthetics and sound, and it took me a while to come around to liking their early works since it’s basically an amalgamation of everything I already liked. This sort of distrust of their music has caused me to not really delve too much into their middle works. Sure, I’ve heard some of Arche, I sat through whatever their album from last year was called, and I dug Sukekiyo, but for whatever reason anything earlier than Marrow of a Bone hasn’t existed on digital platforms. Yesterday, this changed — three of their early ~ middle career releases were added to Spotify and now I have no excuses for ignoring them. As such, I was challenged to do a blind listening review by some veteran fans—partly for their amusement, partly because my musical opinions are highly sought after (citation needed). Here is my first listen review of the classic album Vulgar. Let’s start with the album art. What am I looking at? Is it a bird? Are these disembodied arms in opera length gloves? Overcooked pork tenderloin? I’m really not sure. Sometimes art is like that — it makes you unsure, and that uncertainty makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes that discomfort makes you think, but then other times it makes you reject something and move on. I don’t want to give the band credit for being provocative. I’ve read a lot of Tumblr and have the arcane knowledge to confidently state that this artwork is actually from Disney’s Maleficent — it’s her horns after they got lopped off. Audience KILLER LOOP: never a fan of when titles suddenly yell at me. It really makes me on edge, kind of like this song does. I’m really going into this blind and any departure from Gauze is going to be a real change for me. I guess this is alright, but maybe this style just needs to grow on me more. Let’s see how I hold up going further in… THE IIID EMPIRE: not sure why they decided to make a Star Wars reference here, but to each their own. I suppose this is the hard-hitting style that people have grown to love from this band. The guitar riff slightly after the middle of the song is super cool — in spite of all of the shit I give this band, sometimes they really do have neat ideas. INCREASE BLUE: Again with the yelling of the song titles. Reminds me of the graphic design class I needed to take, with my teacher looming over me. My composition was too warmly colored, so she yelled to me from across the classroom “increase blue.” I took her advice and then she docked me points for it anyway. “Too much blue.” Fuck me. Shokubeni: Apparently this means “red food coloring.” I bet the lyrics have something to do with bloody food or chopping up someone’s girlfriend. This band seems big on that and it’s kind of off-putting. I’d give some deep analysis on the meaning, but I can’t speak Japanese well. Sajou no Uta: Kinda boring. This isn’t really my thing. RED…[em]: a bit too rough for my liking. I get that this is when their hurgleblurgle kind of approach to art really started, but doesn’t mean I need to be fully here for it. A part of this almost saved me from disliking it, but it wasn’t enough. Sfisdfeijaoifjsoefijse: too long for what it was, skipped MARMALADE CHAINSAW: sticky sweet and incredibly wasteful. Started a trend of bands naming things with “chainsaw” in their names, which makes me wonder if the Japanese really know what a chainsaw is? Surely you don’t need one for spreading jam but I’m not Julia Child. Kasumi: Fun fact—this was the name of “Misty” in the Japanese version of Pokemon. Further fun fact, there is a Pokemon card called “Misty’s Determination,” which I assume is written like “Kasumi no Jiketsu.” “”Jiketsu” means “self-determination” but is also a euphemism for “suicide,” so whenever I see that card I read it as “Misty’s Suicide” in my head. Seems like a tangent, but this is honestly a very Dir en Grey kind of story. R THE CORE: filler intro DRAIN AWAY: I actually kind of like this. The guitar atmosphere is really enticing and they’ve definitely upped their skill since Macabre (the last album I blind listened to). I know I’m very firmly into the “Gauze and then the band died” camp, but I am glad I am getting something positive out of this album. NEW AGE CULTURE: Wow. Woooooow. Y’all went OFF on Kisaki for “stealing Kyo’s girlfriend” or whatever and then they go and literally steal the title from a famous Matina omnibus series? I cannot believe the low-life attempt at being petty, but here we are. Unfathomable. OBSCURE: huh…pretty sure Grieva used this. I mean, I knew they seemed like they were fans of Dir En Grey, but I didn’t think they’d flat-out STEAL from them. Well, song is kind of bouncy and hypnotic, so I can see why they’d want to base on of their own songs on it. Still kind of shocked that this is borderline plagiarism. CHILD PREY: One of the best songs on this album. Love the meaning behind it and how the lyrics fit together from the parts I could understand. I don’t mean to gush, but this definitely has that “it” factor that draws people into this band. Amazing. Pray / Prey for your butter Amber: This band likes to have female names as titles. Amber, Kasumi, Audrey, Yurikago….it makes me wonder what their take on feminism is. They’ve already displayed a rather ham-fisted pro-life stance a few albums ago, but maybe their time within the inner machinations of the visual scene caused them to change their stance, especially having interacted with so many female fans and the changes fame brought to them. I wonder if this song’s direct is a reflection of that as well — it’s hard to get into an artist’s head and really understand how they see the world. Overall: 5.5 / 10 for me I know this is a classic album, but that’s how I felt on my first attempt at going through this. I still need to listen to Kisou, so I am open to doing a blind listen review for that as well. If you’d like to try out this album for yourself, or provide your own take on the music, feel free to check it out on Spotify. Sometimes I need to listen to things multiple times to form a true opinion. Funny enough, I still need to actually listen to this album for the first time, as I wrote this review solely based on the song titles and album art.

no one: literally no one: MH suddenly:

💫 GRIMOIRE disbands 💫 ZOMBIE disbands by summer time 💫 Yoshiki will post 1 (one) tweet about the X-Japan album💥 💫 Yoshiki might do a world tour again just so that he can keep up the hope of the fans funding his Hollywood lifestyle 💫Yoshiki will eat a burger at the white house 💫 We will see Chizuru (pentagon) back in a new project 💫 Minpha will be in a new project too and he will speak 💫 Minpha x Meto [OUR VOICE] project? 💫Kisaki will lowkey try to return to the scene like nothing happened💥 💫 Really unremarkable year for アルルカン 💫A couple of singles by sukekiyo, people are gonna whine that they can't get into sukekiyo after INFINITUM 💫 Miyavi x Yoshiki collab 💫 8P-SB takes the world by storm 💫 DADAROMA goes around Europe and/or USA (Oop....I guess not) 💫 No releases from DAMLAM for the rest of 2020

Ascended to I C O N I C

After 13 years of stanning The Birthday Massacre, I FINALLY GET TO SEE THEM IN APRIL!!! AHHHH!!!! THERE IS A GOD!!

Important things to take from this: 1. Die shares that his fav fast riffs are from deg's debut album gauze 2. Toshiya describes their current sound as "psychobilly" lmao

モンストロ MonstlloW NEW 6th SINGLE 『LadyKiller』 TYPE A CD+DVD TYPE B CD only 2020.04.xx

NEiN's interview was coordinated originally by me with help of John @inartistic we both made this interview our first interview together. Since NEiN is a band who fits also to less visual bands, we decided later on to cross post it also on JAPANESE ROCK'N'ROLL. Full interview in English can be read here. https://vk.gy/blog/an-interview-with-nein/ https://jrocknroll.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/interview-with-nein/ Also the original Japanese version has been shared for those who can understand Japanese https://vk.gy/blog/an-interview-with-nein-jp/ https://jrocknroll.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/interview-with-nein/

yeah we got dat new DIMLIM album for ya. It's just one long, live track with ads interspersed.

Don't know if people were interested, but I mentioned a few weeks back that I was compiling my 2019 favorites and so here it is. Just a warning though, I probably only went through a third of the releases I had my eyes on so I may have missed a few good things. Also, I tend to cherry-pick songs so my top song list is rather lengthy. Anyway, I'm gonna try to make this as short and sweet as possible. Ranking is in no particular order unless stated. Top Albums BAROQUE - PEUR ET PUELLA If there was one album I could choose from 2019 it would be PEUR ET PUELLA by BAROQUE hands down. Even though I was still feeling sulky about their music direction, PEUR ET PUELLA honestly took my be surprise. The album feels like a mixture of everything both the members have done in the past, from early baroque to kannvalism, and even Kei's solo work. I'm definitely looking forward to their new album coming out next week. MONO - Before The Past • Live From Electrical Audio Okay, maybe if there was one other album I could choose from 2019 it would be this commemorative album of which MONO re-recorded three songs from their early days. I never remembered much of the song "Halo" but the new energy they have put into it really brings it to life. You can really feel their loud and raw sound in this entire album. Also, I will say that I enjoyed this much more than the new album they actually released, probably due to the fact that "L'america" and "Com(?)" are some of my favorites of theirs. 仮病 (Kebyou) - 毒針 (Dokushin) This might have been the release where Kebyou really caught my attention. I feel like this is the best VK album I've heard in a while that aren't from veterans in the scene. There are so many good tracks here but my favorites might be "Q" and "冷凍保存". If you haven't checked them out yet I would start with this album of theirs. Top Singles gulu gulu - 変なメリーゴーランド (Henna Merry Go Round) Best newcomer of 2019? Hell yeah! Gulu gulu starts with a bang with all great tracks from this single. They released a second single too, but I enjoyed this one more. Develop One's Faculties - ephemeral I'm glad that Develop One's Faculties are still going off strong, they deserve so much more recognition. The second track is a lot of fun and stands out more than the title track. I just love what Yuya does with his vocals sometimes. ペンタゴン - カルチャーショック (Pentagon - Culture Shock) After not enjoying their poppy and synth sound from previous releases, I was surprised by how good this single of Pentagon's was. The title song showed a lot of promise so I gave this single of there's a go for once. Although it still largely has a pop sound it is much more listenable and shows how the band has really matured. Quite a shame that they're now disbanding. Top Songs ザアザア - 光 (Xaa-xaa - Hikari) from 破裂 (Haretsu) Xaa-xaa is more of a hit or miss for me, but when they hit boy do they hit HARD. Out of the bajillion singles they released last year there was only one track that I really liked and that is "光" from their single Haretsu. A very lovely ballad that sort of makes me feel nostalgic for oshare kei from the 00s. I don't know, there's just something kind of familiar about it. ロマン急行 - 歪む太陽 (Roman Kyuko - Yugamu Taiyou) from 人間失格 (Ningen Shikkaku) Roman Kyuko was one of my most anticipated bands and although everything they released has been good, "歪む太陽" from their album might be my most favorite. I think I will miss hearing Yudai's voice in Toru's playing style though, but I'm glad that Izumi's voice works just as wonderfully. 仮病 - Yellow Tokyo I was trying to avoid putting artists twice on the list but I just had to put Kebyou again here. They really showed their potential in 2019 and I'm hoping that this live-limited track of theirs, available to listen on Youtube, will show up in one of their future releases. The CD cover looks ugly and low-budget af but I promise you the song is good. DADAROMA - 嫣然 (Enzen) from Dadaism#5 Dadaism#5 was not bad overall, but "嫣然" blew me away right off the bat. Might be just me but it feels kind of close to Crazy☆shampoo. Always wanted to hear Yoshiatsu belting like that again. 蘭図 - ドグラ・マグラ (Rands - Dogra Magra) from Leda Atomica Can't express my joy to see Karma back and bringing the old-school sound back on top of that, not that I'm totally familiar with old-school bands but it feels very refreshing in the scene. I love how "Dogra Magra" starts with the fluttering of a fly/moth and kind of introduces a solitary and barren atmosphere to this lovely ballad. nurié - モノローグ (Monologue) from モノローグ Can anybody tell me who these guys are 'cause they're amazing! Feeling such an art-kei vibe from this track. I hope more of their releases will be accessible because I seriously need to hear more!! キズ - 夢 (Kizu - Yume) from 平成 (Heisei) It felt like 2019 was a bit weak for Kizu imo, but I'm happy that "夢" finally got a recording. If only it wasn't recorded in whatever special equipment they used, but it's still very listenable as it's one of my favorite songs of theirs. ユメリープ - でっどばーすでー (Yumeleep - Dead Birthday) from ばーすまたー (Birth Matter) I will admit that Yumeleep got a bit boring and same-y for me, but "でっどばーすでー" caught my attention this time around. I might even say this is the best song they've done so far. It feels like the vocalist experimented more with his vocals instead of sounding monotone all the time, making this track much more interesting and even catchy. DIMLIM - 離人 (Rijin) from 離人 To be honest, this song took a few listens for it to grow on me. It's true that the instrumentals feel a bit mashed up in a few places but I'm not complaining because now I'm in love with it. NITRODAY - ダイヤモンド・キッス (Diamond Kiss) from 少年たちの予感 (Premonition of Kids) The only non-vk band on the list, well other than MONO. NITRODAY are one of the few indie bands that I've been keeping a real close eye on. Their entire EP Premonition of Kids is great, but "Diamond Kiss" is such a sweet summer song. The addition of the bassist's back vocals work wonderfully and sometimes I'll easily find myself singing along. I didn't even realize how short the song was. Well, that about sums up my favorites from 2019. And now I'm gonna head out and dig through the rest of the stuff I missed!

May the power of delicious curry fuel and hasten the recording process.

the new need for speed looks great huh

Like all those years after releasing "Eclipse"?)

TK from 凛として時雨 (TK from Ling Tosite Sigure) new maxi- single "蝶の飛ぶ水槽" (Chou no Tobu Suisou) will be released at 2020/01/22 it is the opening theme of TV anime show "pet" [tracklist] 1. 蝶の飛ぶ水槽 2. melt (with 鎌野 愛 / Live from Bi-Phase Brain “L side") 3. P.S. RED I (Live from Bi-Phase Brain “L side") 4. 蝶の飛ぶ水槽 (Instrumental)

So I'm a veteran on this site? Now I feel old. I like the purple look though.

BONUS:

MERRY has renewed their Youtube channel to include more content such as acoustic lives and other ways to connect with their fans! Here's a shortened subbed version, which highlights the important parts (I highly recommend following this account if you want exclusive scoops of Merry content in English!!) : Here's their first acoustic live video, the acoustic version of "Bara to katasumi no blues" from just a couple of days ago~

Reincarnated Really Hot People rip welcome Veteran LOL

DEG added Macabre, Kisou, and Vulgar to spotify:

I'm going to shape up this year and go back to my roots. I'll spend a week in isolation in Berlin and it'll be just me, strangers and adventures and total debauchery. I've been using my girlfriends spotify and I've noticed that it has both made me complacent and unwilling to explore the deeper reaches of my interests, and that's why I'm going to go old school; all the music on my computer will head straight to the bin and I'll soulseek the shit out of something unfamiliar that'll scare me back into taking control of my life and art. Speaking of taking control and complacency, it's some sad shit what happened to youtube and internet in general. Homogenised by corporate interest beyond repair. I remember when I could spend hours diving down the rabbit hole of related videos from vk pvs whereas now you'll only get videos of the same channel, videos you watched in the past and then videos popular that are vaguely "related." This really killed it for me as far as finding new bands, it's now all on the shoulders of that one guy who does these top pvs of every month.

Vo.詩季(Shiki) (ex.Sick.) solo project "SoNZAi." has formed ohp twitter

ex-Vexent Vo. マコ (Mako) new band "KAKUMAY" has formed https://twitter.com/KAKUMAY_STAFF

眩暈SIREN (Memai SIREN) new maxi-single "image _____" has been released at 2020/01/22 it's the ending theme of TV anime show "pet" TK from 凛として時雨 (Ling Tosite Sigure) is the producer [tracklist] 1.image _____ (TVアニメ「pet」エンディングテーマ） 2.Gerbera 3.image _____(TV SIZE LONG VER.)

Meet Seth, the songwriter, near REC Studio Because I knew today was #curry day First is the beginning of the search for curry Because if you hear curry day, you won't be able to stay or stand? So it started with the ceremony of eating curry ... There is no space to write about REC ... Mana

fuck

I hate you so much

i really love that photo of madeth gray'll in the op

I cant believe you've done this

K E E P I T

kyo is angry because he's a tiny hobogoblin

1. ぐるぐる症候群 2. 病みうさぎ2 3. 必殺！ミラクルアルティメット！

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS Chouchou Merge Syrups 🤢

It couldn't be that, as "デー" represents an elongated /deɪ/ sound, as in "day", whereas the "e" at the end of "merde" is silent. I'm no expert, but "merde" would probably be transliterated "メ—ド" or "メアド" or possibly "メルド" or possibly even "マ—ド ". Great tune by the way

PURPLE GANG RISE UP

Song recording of Moi dix Mois's new album has finally started ...! Seth, I am looking forward to a wonderful singing voice! I'm Seth on February 2nd ... I'm currently practicing to play SHAPESHIFTER songs with Motoi Z. Don't forget to respect the SS and let the guitar burst! Ticket reservation Available at [email protected]!

This video along with Fender's clip of J trying a model from their new Ultra series... ...makes me wonder why the Western music industry's big fishes' visibility of J-rockers (and thus their legitimacy over them as rock musicians) is happening today, with a VK scene deader than ever, both in Japan and abroad, and not in 2007. Is 2020 going to be a revitalizing year for VK despite all our -accurately justified- apocalyptic thoughts?

Part 2 The GazettE (i just love their looks during Disorder era so much xD) La'Mule Gallhammer Eliphas Levi Lamiel deadman Merry Go Round PENICILLIN Early exist†trace looks always ftw ❤️

It's really not that bad song... the melody is pretty well played. Misaki surly grows in singing due time. But melody really fits Misaki's voice. There is much potential inside. Guys did do a great job! Looking forward to more, just please do NOT disband within 1 year. But yes those mistry announcements, band people only should do that when they are a little better known. But... we overseas people can't even really judge how popular someone really is, since we don't go to every damn live lol.

love the two photos posted for 9gbo too! i went through my folder and dug out some favorites. unfortunately i didn't save everything, it's hard to find good quality pics of some of them now.... i think this is mostly the cover for their ep What is "Plastic Tree", but what the hey i love it. probably one of their most iconic photos. wish i could find it in better quality.... my favorite when i first got into them. the flowers add such a nice touch. sou just looks too adorable here and i love his scarf ;u; SCISSOR did the spooky theme so much better than Candy Spooky Theater music wise imho, and they got peculiar looks that wasn't just halloween-y Guniw Tools have a number of weird photos but i love the composition in this one so simple but very iconic at the time, i would say i'm noticing that most people are posting older photos so here's a few from more recent bands a real hard pick from the two, i had them both as my desktop wallpaper a bit too much editing on this one but still a great photo and one non-vk, from THE TEENAGE KISSERS feel like i spammed a bit too much here, haha. might post more later~

I have loved DIMLIM from the beginning and even sought out some of the live limited stuff and paid a ridiculous price for the actual CD's, but I'm not risking this either. Definitely going to try before I buy.

I have tons of faves just from BUCK-TICK, but here are only a few:

Psysalia psysalis psyche

The entire "marketing" of this new album is atrocious. It really feels like they want to fail. I love these guys to death but seriously... they need to know what they want. They post a one second preview, then they decide it will be a digital only release. They want to charge full price for a digital release, but later on make the physical cd an amazon exclusive but post no details. The release is in a week and this is a trainwreck. All we can do is speculate but I honestly don't see this benefiting them in anyway. Even if this becomes a banger of an album no ones going to hear it... the promotion is non existent and i dont see them making any money on this. People will pirate this album.

Man, his voice just keeps getting cuter.

we love to see it!

noah fence but i think this whole like "sO mYsTeRiOuS" cloaks-and-shadows thing where its supposed to keep everyone guessing and be a big exciting reveal, doesn't really work when it's bandmen nobody would recognise anyway. was i really supposed to guess the guitarist from 失墜とアサナギ and the support bassist from SARRMATH? still the song is okay imo so ill follow them bc why not you are mistaken REVINE → ARCHEMI. (アルケミ) support → SLIVER. support , MISAKI support , GzNDLH support , RGDY (ラガディ) support , Astaroth

Thinking about this thread again because I tried to find 蟻‘s (Ari) singles on Cdjapan and it returned only Ariana Grande in my search, confirming that she really is the one responsible for vkei being unpopular

Couldn't get the download to work, but guess what, I have a screen recording! If anyone wants to help me record it properly from nico, that will be so appreciated. If not, I'll put the screen recording up tomorrow. Edit: MERRY ONE MAN TOUR 2019 - For Japanese Sheeple - There were a couple of hiccups with the stream, but hopefully small enough that they won't distract from the experience.