Oh I completely forgot about Primal Fear’s Metal Commando, what an album!
AOTY award goes to ABRACADABRA by BUCK-TICK, that album was just an absolute home run (as per usual, haha)
Runners up include 十色定理 (Juushoku Teiri) by Plastic Tree, 悪 (Aku) by MUCC and ヒトリランド (Hitoriland) by ハイダンシークドロシー (Hide and Seek Dorothy). NEMOPHILA (NAZARE) and FUNERAL (Hazuki) also stood out to me this year.
BIG fan of this album. Buck-Tick isn’t a top tier band for me, but this album just completely floored me.
zigzag and buck-tick’s albums were my definite favs, and had a lot of reol on repeat too.
I’ve really enjoyed the nurié stuff that came out this year… el:cid’s stuff on spotify is nice too… although it’s not really new lol
Marvelous Cruelty’s 夜葬曲 regained my faith in vk
IOLITE -アイオライト- debut album and the singles by AISARE. They take me back to 2012 lol
This is from 2015 but I only heard it this year and I fell in love for it: Agitation Clysis ~Integrity~ - (omnibus) | vkgy (ブイケージ)
About this year releases, gulu gulu stuff definitely caught my attention.
For me it’s Lynch’s single “OVERCOME THE VIRUS” for supporting the live-houses. It’s a fresh sound and the retake of A GLEAM IN EYE is SO good.
Haven’t heard anything new this year. Spent most of it catching up on old stuff I missed.
Gonna cheat and give it to Malice Mizer’s Bara no Seidou which I finally got on CD. First time hearing it lossless. My previous download was an awful 128 kbps.
Still disappointed about Dir en grey’s single. That might have been best release for me if it’d come out on CD. No idea about the quality of the music as I haven’t heard the download yet.
I have also enjoyed KAKUMAY’s cover of “Chain Hang Low”, that’s a pretty damn good release… it’s on spotify too…
Jaki - In the mirror was my favorite release from this year.
The pv song is garbage tbh but other tracks are quite cool
For me it’s definitely RAKUGAKI self-titled album, great songs and a great length. Very punky and thats something i really missed in visual kei.
This year was pretty slim pickings as far as releases go, but these were my favorites:
- lynch. - ULTIMA
- Angelo - evolve
- DEXCORE - Metempsychosis
- Hazuki - Funeral
- Plastic Tree - 十色定理 (Jusshoku Teiri)
- heidi. - Tamayura
- RAZOR - 眠れぬアステカ
- DARREL - BRILLIANT DEATH
- HOLLOWGRAM - PALE BLUE DOT
The last Inquisition album
It wasn’t a revelation or anything, but it’s their best album in a long time, and 2020 was a horrible year for music and there wasn’t a lot of competition.
[METEMPSYCHOSIS.] by DEXCORE. Easily my favourite active band right now, and I had the pleasure of seeing them live for the first time last week too, which was a great way to end this turbulent year. I’d been waiting for an album from them forever, and when they announced that they were going to add retakes of almost their entire discography as a bonus, my hype-o-meter went through the roof. While those are still a mixed bag for me (highlights being Imitation, noise and Mistake; minor changes in my favourite Brain Washing, Miserable Imposter, and Hunger from the live-limited edition spoiling them for me) a majority of the new tracks are very strong (Demise, the Ground, BREATH, and the killer title track being some of them).
MISC by DIMLIM
I surprisingly got into a lot of neo Vk stuff this year. I actually think 2020 wasn’t that bad, there were loads of good stuff, especially outside VK. But when it comes to japanese stuff, I enjoyed these:
賽ノカラ筐 by 31-8520
Everything released this year by 蘭図 (Rands), though it wasn’t as good as their very first releases
ラク×ガキ by RAKUGAKI
夜葬曲 by Marvelous Cruelty
IN THE MIRROR by Jaki
EXSODIO by REVIVE
「苦い飴」 by Jigsaw
Anything by Kebyo
Still have to listen to a lot of stuff though…
If I had to pick just one it would probably be
LIQUEFACIO by sukekiyo
even though it’s “just” a live concert. I’ve always enjoyed their live releases much more than the studio recordings. It just seems to me that their full potential lies in live performance and that theatrics, spontaneity and the ever changing shape of songs is a huge part of what makes them enjoyable to me. Even the engineering is oftentimes better than on studio recordings.
Other than that I really enjoyed
落ちた事のある空 by DIR EN GREY
アダンの風 & “gift” at Sogetsu Hall by 青葉市子
GHOST OF ROMANCE by 101A, emmurée & ムニムニ
Honestly I haven’t listened to vk/jrock a lot in 2020, but I agree with some people here saying that Buck-Tick’s Abracadabra was pretty good. Also, I quite enjoyed Miyavi’s Holy Nights (only half of the album though).