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25 Days of MH-mas Discussion Thread

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Oni to Kage is one of my favorite albums of this year. As Champ and Zess both stated in their reviews, their mix of original ideas and blatant copy and pasting somehow comes out nostalgic, yet innovative at the same time. I was into visual-kei for about 5 years before I tried out early Dir en Grey, so I cannot say that their work has really influenced my taste in this scene tremendously like it has many others. However, I really do like their Gauze era, and seeing it revitalized and reimagined is really exciting for me.While it does seem a bit disheartening to have to play ~guess the diru cover~ for each release, Grieva's musical style and style of dress are what I personally consider to be of the best caliber this scene has to offer, and they are my favorite active visual-kei band at the moment. 

 

The album itself has a lot of variety to it that paint a pretty accurate picture of what was happening in Visual-kei in 1999. It mixes gothic rock with some black metal, throws in some poppy songs, a slow song, and then has some tracks there that mush together a combination everything prior. My personal favorite is the second track on the album: "孤独人形症候群." It reminds me a lot of the super aggressive Matina bands like Das:vasser. Second favorites are "中絶" (spin off of La:Sadie's' "setsudan" and is an obligatory song about abortion) and "Kikei" (their more psychotic / gawfy 亡骸を worship). Even if many of their songs are similar to those on Gauze (and even some of the themes in the songs are highly similar, like abortion, rape, etc), I feel Oni To Kage has enough of a personality to really stand on its own and ironically Grieva somehow have enough individuality to really stand out from other 'copy-cat' bands even though their influences are so blatant that I'm not sure how Ains hasn't gotten sued yet.

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oh sweet, Kinoko Teikoku. Liked their debut mini from last year more than this album though, as it had more impact on me. Still one of the bands that had such an awesome impact on me when I saw them when they opened for the cabs back in 2012. Especially how those two girls were on stage compared to the two guys =), and yeah, I still got my ava+sig set featured on them =)

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So what exactly were the requirements for an album to make it on the list? Did you guy just name some personal faves, vote on them, and order them in the amount of votes they recieved? Is the list even ordered, or is it random? Just curious cause most of the albums had at least two staff members review them, but that one Nico album only has one review. If it's so liked why did only one staff member review it?

 

Anyway I'm really happy to see Tam Tam, Kinoko Teikoku, and amber gris on the list! Tam Tam especially Polarize was such a great listening experience, and was on my fave list from the start. I love the variety in the list and I'm looking forward to the rest of it~

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So what exactly were the requirements for an album to make it on the list? Did you guy just name some personal faves, vote on them, and order them in the amount of votes they recieved? Is the list even ordered, or is it random? Just curious cause most of the albums had at least two staff members review them, but that one Nico album only has one review. If it's so liked why did only one staff member review it?

There is an order but it's complex to explain coherently.

First, we independently assembled a list of albums we liked from this year. Each album counted as one vote, and we could each pick a handful of albums to have two votes if we really liked it and thought it deserved a place here. We tallied them up, and after some fudging and cleverness the 25 albums with the most weight made it onto the list. The albums are being reviewed in numerical order from least to most votes, and albums that have the same number of votes are reviewed in alphabetical order. The reviews are written by the staff member(s) that voted for them to be on the list (I just happen to write extra reviews if the mood strikes me). If only one staff member reviewed an album, that's because only one staff member voted for the album and it made it.

So yes, this is in order. It's just transparent to you guys. :)

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Day 13 - the unknown forecast - オークション (Auction) posted!

Were's now just over halfway through the list! What does everyone think of it so far?

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I will comment what I've listened in the list so far

 

ALSDEAD - Separator

I think it is a good album, but the sound production is kinda meh. Overall I can not take this album into my AOTY list

 

Dir En Grey - THE UNRAVELING

well, I kinda like Diru long time ago, but this mini album kinda ruined the old song, I have imagined the old song will be more cool with their recent style, but...... that doesn't work

 

I will try Ohashi trio and yousei teikoku later, but as far I remember I didn't like yui's voice, the music itself is good, but didn't fit for the voice

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jesus, totally forgot about wakusei! i actually downloaded it and put it on my ipod when it came out, but then it completely left my brainworks :P

this shit is seriously cool, very tokyo jihen-ish, in a good way!

thanks for pointing them out again (over the winter-holidays i will be hanging at my parents place and be very very bored, ideal for listening this whole list through and maybe reviewing the stuff that caught my attention :) )

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Late post, but I dig that Wakusei record too - is sorta reminiscent to older Shiina Ringo material (might call it "Muzai Moratorium-lite", if you will), which I don't mind at all! :D

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Checked out Div and I was highly impressed. Finally a VK band that does the electronic thing right! Not only is the production great but so is the music. I really enjoyed their rock style and the electronic flourishes. The vocalist actually knows how to sing and the guitar riffs and drumming is great. You can tell the effort that went into this release. If only other vk bands could strive and achieve this level of quality. 2nd best vk album of the year behind Jupiter imo.

 

My 2 other discoveries from this list was Kinoko Teikoku and Tam Tam. Loved eureka by Kinoko Teiku. That release is just amazing and so is this band. I have to go check out there other releases now. Also really enjoyed the eccentric sound of Tam Tam. I'm glad Yōsei Teikoku's PAX VESANIA was included on this list. It's the best album they've done so far.

 

I need to check out the other releases but there's lots of quality awesome stuff here. 

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Really glad you are liking some of the stuff on this list! I am pretty happy with how it had turned out so far and we still have a lot of great stuff coming.

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Oh wakusei abnormal, I just realized that I have the album but forget about it, re-listening again yesterday

The album is a bit weird at the beginning, but after listening it at the right time, I found the album is pretty great :)

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