Seimeisen

It has come to my attention that I have nothing left to share with this board. While most people leave quietly unless they aim to make their departure a publicity stunt, I feel that saying goodbye to a forum where I've more or less spent every day for the past 10 years is the least I could do.
 
I've made a lot of good friends here, had fun as a mod for like 15 minutes, and loved being an official reviewer. In spite of all of that, I cannot help but feel it is time I move on.
 
I do not plan on fully deleting my account so I can still leech, but if you'd like to chat about music you can find me:
 
-On Twitter
-On the VKGY discord
-Adding scans and lyrics to ZombiexJuice
-Making half-assed unboxing videos of rejected vkei maxi-singles
 
 
 
It's been fun 💋

This can be fixed by changing the .webp part of the image url to .jpg

Rather enjoying this album.
 
I prefer it to ANGELS mostly in the sense that it takes the more poppy/electronic experimentation that album had and runs further with it, whereas ANGELS tended to fall back into more safe, familiar-sounding territory quite a bit (BAD DREAM, Everything, Close to Me, etc all sound very similar to previous tracks they've put out). It also feels more tightly-themed than ANGELS, and having very strongly-themed releases is something I really like about the majority of THE NOVEMBERS discog in general.
 
To be honest I felt rather down on THE NOVEMBERS post-Elegance. Hallelujah felt kind of like a glorified best-of album (all new songs, but the majority of them felt like stuff they'd explored more in-depth in previous releases) and TODAY was pretty weak IMO, but these last two releases have both been pretty good. 

This album is a quick one (barely 35 minutes), but an interesting one. I think I like it more than ANGELS. It‘a more “modern” than anything else they’ve done. Their tracks from the unknown flowers split with Boris could have worked on this album, especially Journey.
 
So far, my favourites are Dead Heaven and Hamletmachine, least favourites are New York and 開け放たれた窓.

I was always wondering if they’d ever release another album. The singles were very hit-or-miss with me, but I look forward to checking this out.

アルルカン (Arlequin) new album "The laughing man" will be released at 2020/08
 
"ビロード"  has been released digitally today (2020/05/16)
 
 

Well...this is still a better artwork than the one in ULTIMA

At The Beginning will be released on 27 May (CD in Japan, digital/streaming worldwide). The album is currently available for pre-order on their online shop, and orders placed by 17 April should arrive on 13 May. The album will also get an early release on Bandcamp, on 16 May.
 

 
The cover, done by tobird, was inspired by the track 消失点 (Shoushitsu-ten). "The sphere of the jacket beautifully expresses the three-dimensional, clear and noisy sound of the world." "The artwork is a symbolic object that can be felt at the beginning or end, positively, negatively, naturally, or artificially." tobird set out to create something that could be put on display in someone's room.
 
Tracklist:
1, Rainbow
2, 薔薇と子供 (Bara to Kodomo; A Rose and A Child)
3, 理解者 (Rikaisha; Supporter)
4, Dead Heaven
5, 消失点 (Shoushitsu-ten; Vanishing Point)
6, 楽園 (Rakuen; Paradise)
7, New York
8, Hamletmachine
9, 開け放たれた窓 (Ake-hanatareta mado; The Abandoned Window)
 
薔薇と子供 is streaming on YouTube
 
TOUR -消失点- will go from 16 May to 11 July, and a ¥2,000 student discount will be offered on tickets.
 
source

The album release is postponed to June 10 due to Covid-19
 

There are only a few Japanese bands that I've slept on for more than a few years.
 
BUCK-TICK: I slept on them for nearly ten years. I've known about them since 2009, I would receive a song of theirs in a few trade-offs time to time, even downloaded a few albums, but never really put in the effort to listen to them until sometime last year. I don't quite remember what motivated this, or which I album I officially started with, but I now listen to them all the time.
 
BORIS: learned of their existence in 2011, but didn't really bother to listen to anything; in 2013, I added New Album to my wishlist where it sat for years and years; I downloaded NOISE in 2014 but never really listened to it. In 2016, they re-released PINK, and I decided to give them a real try, I finally listened to NOISE and got hooked. Now, they're one of my absolute favourite bands!
 
If we're including non-Japanese bands, there's a bigger list. Each year between 2016-2019, I rediscovered a band that I hella slept on approximately ten years prior. In 2016, I got into The Number Twelve Looks Like You; in 2017, Deftones; 2018, Underoath; 2019, tool. It became a musical discovery event that I would anticipate. I'm not sure if there are any more bands I could rediscover to keep this tradition going.
 
This all has me pondering how my taste in music has changed in the past fifteen years. I learned of these bands when I was a teenager, and a lot of them I learned about when my taste in music was narrower than ever. I wonder, would I have been able to appreciate any of these bands when I first learned they existed? Would their music have changed my palate sooner, or in different ways? Or did my palate need to change the way it did before I could appreciate their music?

The GazettE. The first song I heard by them was "Agony" and I got so turned off thinking they were some kind of shitty nu-metal band. Thank Yoshiki I was wrong and gave them another chance later on.

Interesting choice for cover art, I thought everyone hated Ozma in FF IX
 

The band temporarily stopped the album's recording due to the virus situation.
 
 

They're releasing song(s) early I guess to hold people over 
Song is available on basically every digital platform 

After just over a year, THE NOVEMBERS returns for a new album scheduled for May and it's called At The Beginning !
Details like the cover, the release date and the tracklist will be revealed soon.
A tour is scheduled with May 16th as the starting live.
Yukihiro (L'Arc~en~Ciel, ACID ANDROID) participated in the realisation of the album.
 
 

New visual

About time. I always thought Kyo was just a Ruki wannabe anyways.

It's a grey area for me. On the one hand, it's way easier to chuck $2.58 at a single on iTunes than it is to spend $30 to have it physically imported from CDJ. But at the same time, sometimes record deals fall through or the band splits and then their material is gone from streaming services. 
 
For example, GE+IM's digital single is now gone, and all of UnsraW's materially used to be streamable, but that got removed a few months ago.
 
Unfortunately, being available digitally comes with an asterisk that says *(for now)

They need to take a break...Tatsus voice is getting worse every year.Those thousands of lives are paying tribute..He sounded best around 2004-2007 
And yes Ameria is one of their bests in a decade

They're doing a making-of DVD feature for this album? Really? They just thought it was that good, huh? m'kay that's not delusional
 
It's not the steaming pile of shit I was low-key anticipating, but it wasn't that great. Starts off strong, but then just drops halfway. The weaker songs are only as weak as they are because Tatsurou ruins them, the music itself is decent at worst. What the hell happened to him, anyway? He used to be good, right? Is every VK vocalist's voice just turning to shit lately? We got Arimura, we've got that stupid nose job guy from 己龍, and now this dude.
 
Still, my expectation: 壊れたピアノ > 悪 >> 脈拍

Are they ever going to surpass Homura Uta?

アメリア has that 2003 exhumation energy they've been trying to channel since 2009 once in a while & I don't hate it, otherwise that preview is a waste of 10 minutes
 
tatsurou sounds like shit

I have Chase Sapphire and get 2X points for dining and travel. Within the last year, I've traveled quite a bit (Norway, Japan, AZ, NY, etc) and the card has been great for this. Besides the fact that it's thick and weighted and feels nice to hold, it's been pretty good to me for the travel purpose. I pay for airfare, hotel, food, and everyone else just gives me their share but then it's like the entire purchase is put on the card even though not all of that is mine but I'm getting all the points for it. I currently have 98,000 points which I could cash in for $980 or redeem it for airfare and get an additional 25% out of it.  I'm holding on to it for now because I won't be going anywhere anytime soon (with Corona virus and all).
 
I do have a debit card, but I rarely use that now because I don't get points with it. To answer your question: to me, there's really no advantage other than accumulating points/cash back. There's no real difference if I used my debit card or my credit card. Both end up pulling money from my checking account. With the debit card, that money is obviously pulled right away, but with the credit card, I just end up pulling what I charged on the credit card all in one payment at the end of the month. 
 
Sorry I feel like im rambling at this point lmao. So basically the reason I got my current credit card is because it's weighted and not paper thin and 2x points for food/travel.

I liked their last 2 mini-albums, but bye!!

it will include 12 songs for 3850yen
 
[tracklist]
01. 掟 (Okite)
02. 狼煙 (Noroshi)
03. 明日もし僕がどこかで朽ちて (Ashita Moshi Boku ga Doko ka de Kuchite)
04. デラシネーション (Deracination)
05. 神様のアイロニー (Kamisama no Irony)
06. 木枯らしの詩 (Kogarashi no Uta)
07. 完全無欠 (Kanzen Muketsu)
08. MAD INVISIBLE
09. 見知らぬ害虫 (Mishiranu Gaichuu)
10. UNCHAIN
11. STARS
12. 邂逅 (Kaigou)