I’ve actually never listened to dazzlingbad !
X Japan, LUNA SEA, DIR EN GREY, lynch., anything KISAKI related, GACKT, David, I’ll leave it at that for now.
To save any confusion, i just merged your thread, just mention you are new to VK and need recommendations
Also for recommendations XaaXaa are kinda nice, even though I haven’t followed up with them since a while
Also if You want to give some nonVK bands a try how about One Eye Closed, they should be pretty easy to get into
i only listened to a few songs but I love vertigo! MV is cool
For as long as I remember i’ve been into Jrock but when I was listening to my playlist I noticed just how many Vk bands there were but very few Non-Vk bands. so long story short does anyone have any Non-Vk bands they could recommend just to broaden my horizons?
If you want some non-vk but still visual-oriented bands, then you can find many great examples in this post by zeus:
Here are some other bands I would recommend (they’re a little on the heavy side though, I’m afraid):
SUGGESTIONS
HIKAGE
A Ghost Of Flare
C-GATE
@Rena knows a bunch more than I do, so you can ask her!
Ezra gave you some heavy bands already, so let me add some less heavy stuff.
Unless you like the heavy stuff, then i will give you some of that
Joppin:cal, indie rock band, two of the members come from the VK scene, but the band itself isn’t a visual one
Autumn in Oblivion
The Cards I Play, have some heavy songs that are classic metalcore and less heavy ones, Shades of Gray is a less heavy one
One Eye Closed are also on the border of heavy and not heavy
Do you like female artists?
Aya is a singer/songwriter and bassist
She was in VK band called Re:Vein, so got some visual roots
And one last, do you instrumental music? If yes Nevrness is a pretty cool bass instrumental project, it’s only bass and drums, nothing more.
“Non-vk” is extremely broad and encompasses pretty much every genre under the sun. Would you be able to go into a bit more detail about what you’d like to hear specifically? Like, are you looking for a specific sound, mood, or aesthetic? A particular brand of rock? Anything would be helpful.
I agree with what CAT5 is saying. If you can, take a sledgehammer to any musical borders or limitations in your mind. I did that about a decade ago, and I ran into some cool stuff. Wandered off and found a slice of music I would have never encountered otherwise. You like video games, right @RWEMI?
Well then, welcome to
The Realm of Doujin
The following explanation are snippets taken from Wikipedia:
Doujin music (同人音楽, dōjin ongaku), also called otokei doujin (音系同人) in Japan, is a sub-category of doujin activity. Doujin are non-official self-published Japanese works which can be based on official products or completely original creations. Such products are sold online on specialized sites, on the authors’ own sites, and in conventions such as the popular Comiket.
Doujin music isn’t a musical genre in itself, but is indicative of a particular means of publication much in the same way as the term “indie” is used.
Often, such music will consist of video game music fan arrangements. Much original doujin music also exists, and has been created both for doujin games and independently, spanning many musical genres such as pop, rock, techno, trance, hardcore and many more.
By nature, doujin music is self-produced at low cost by independent artists. Home-studio software is typically advantageous to doujin music composers, as it is cheaper than studio-mastering live instruments. As such, most doujin music has a distinct synthetic quality to it. It is common to have one live instrument (such as a guitar) backed up by synthetic orchestrations, though full instrumentation is becoming more and more common in doujin music, such as orchestral works or doujin jazz.
Doujin music artists can be solo or band projects. It is very common for members of different groups to collaborate on an album. Some projects, such as Woodsoft, are collaborations of several artists contributing to a given theme for each of their album releases.
Aside from Comiket, events held in Japan for doujin music include the bi-annual M3 music summit and the Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai, the latter of which includes music derived from Touhou Project.
I fell into this backwards, starting with the Touhou Project rearrangements. I took a chance on something on a whim because someone whose taste I liked shared it, and I ended up enjoying it too. This can go as deep as visual kei depending on how much energy you want to put into it, but even skimming the surface can be enjoyable.
Unlike visual kei, visuals of the artist are de-emphasized or often not available entirely. I feel the music speaks for itself. I’m just gonna get into a few now, of varying genres and styles.
Electric Red
Instrumental Meshuggah Worship set to Touhou Project/Project Shrine Maiden music. It might take a bit for the poly rhythms to click, or it might just melt your brain right away, but the combination of Meshuggah riffs and video game themes is the perfect heavy music to mix into a playlist with the DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal OSTs.
Foreground Eclipse
Some real great post-hardcore gems are in their later albums, but be warned their early stuff is a little rough. Proof practice and diligence gets you places, because after this circle dissolved the vocalist has gone on to end up in some of the most surprising places, and she sounds better and better each time. This is where I started with them.
Thousand Leaves
Insanely talented melodic death metal. I prefer the stuff with Abecky on vocals to the later stuff with AFTERZERO, but put Bach in front of a guitar and awesome things happen.
Demetori
You aren’t getting five recommendations into this scene from me without coming across Demetori. This two-man unit not only are brothers, but are the most ambitious band and probably my favorite overall artist out of this scene. These two do what others wish they could. They don’t even need vocals because no one can keep up.
Vermillion-D Alice Syndrome
New unit of the former circle Kokuyasou (黒夜葬), but I recommend these guys because I have a harder time getting people into instrumental gothic metal if they aren’t already into gothic metal. So consider this my attempt to get you into gothic metal.
少女病 (Shoujobyou)
A deep cut from me since I don’t really recommend this circle a lot, but it follows up from VDAS quite nicely. Unlike the first four songs I’ve posted, this one is less aggressive. Quite melodic and pleasant with female vocals.
hapi⇒
I don’t really like gabber, but this one particular track caught my interest. It’s a 26 minute remix of every theme from Pokemon RBY/GSC and it’s always a blast to throw this on once in a while and nerd out. I also don’t get to recommend this track very often, because the situation never calls for it, so I take my chances where I can.
SILENT DIFFERENCE
I will recommend this circle here whenever I get a chance. They get real close to sounding visual kei. Real close.
UNDEAD CORPORATION
This circle is so diverse one song cannot accurately capture their sound. I’ll just leave you with something interesting that I like from them. Sorry for the production quality in advance, but hey this is a visual kei forum! Also, female vocalist again!
That should be enough to see if you’re interested to look further.
I most defenitely enjoyed Demetori’s music. Their sound was everything! And in terms of what i’m looking for I’d say bands a little bit similar to Mongol 800,Sigh,Maximum the Hormone, or Band-maid (Hopes this makes things easier)
Anything similar to
Janne Da Arc
abstracts (not counting Graupel or earthists)
?
You want it more the djenty way or metalcore??
They unfortunately don’t have more till now
Elysium is kinda djenty, but have barely discography too
Hold up let me link of the metalcore playlist i made on YouTube
Click me for japanese metalcore
You will know some of the bands already and some of them are disbanded
A More Random Assortment of Shit Initial Z Likes
Hellion Sounds / S.S.H.
I’ma just lump them together since he’s the glue of Hellion Sounds and he has his own solo project. Absolutely mental power metal, some video game based, some original arrangements. Below is one song from each project. First one is from Megami Tensei II, second is from Thunder Force IV. If you like Demetori, you might like this.
Aldious
Not sure if you’ve run into them yet, but I may as well cover them anyway. I happen to like them every now and again. More power metal with a female vocalist and some great solos. This one’s kinda thrashy. No harsh vocals if that’s not up your alley.
BULL ZEICHEN 88
No other band sounds quite like Maximum the Hormone, but these guys scratch that itch.
Boris
Boris is one of those bands that has such a wide discography that it’s a little difficult to get a grasp on their sound with just one song. So I gave you three. Even these don’t cover their drone doom, pop, ambient, or hard rock styles. Also, it’s a soft JRO requirement that you at least listen to the main riff of 1970 at least once.
the brilliant green
I don’t really follow the brilliant green, but I adore this track and will take any opportunity to share it.
CROW’SCLAW
Last one, have some Final Fantasy 3 battle music in metal form.
This is perfect! THANK YOU!
OH I LOVE YOU THIS IS PERFECT
Anyone know any of these bands? Are they any good? Is this just a compilation of punk that died for a reason and it’s one last cash grab for these old timers?
Track 9 is Dokusatsu TERRORIST, pretty cult band in the angura scene! I’ve never rly listened to them, but they seem like a fun bunch. Track 19 band LAUGHIN’ NOSE is one of the more legendary punk bands from back in the '80s, I think I checked some albums from them a long time ago, they were cool.
Never heard of any of the other acts there (unless track 10’s A/ACE is the same as that terrible pirate-kei vk band).
Oh that’s Dokusatsu they were really cool back in the day.
i like exis’trace a lot but idk really any other all girl vkei bands
Algos is female duo
There is/was Danger Gang.
Personally i would recommend you to just opt for femal metal/rock bands.
Visually there is not a lot of difference and musically wise neither tbh.
You could try with some of those
Non of these are VK
Otherwise there are some VK bands that are mixed
You can find some listed in here