DIR EN GREY - MORTAL DOWNER

Reviews
302

Maybe it’s time to admit that their music just isn’t for you anymore? Personally, the last album I really enjoyed from start to finish was Withering to Death, or even TMOAB. It’s been ~20 years back. I skip a good quarter of DSS; there are at most two tracks on Arche that I like, same goes for TIW and Phalaris, and although I appreciate the very personal direction with MORTAL DOWNER, the only track that stands out for me is The Devil In Me (which has no place on this album and, by the way, which is why it stands out more than the others)

As a musician, I’ve found bands that inspire me much more, and as a listener, this is the kind of album I won’t be going back to. It was a cool ride— getting a new Dir en Grey album is always something but, yeah, it’s just not for me anymore. Same goes with the last Deftones, objectively speaking a very good album, but I won’t be going back to it, since I’ve gotten stuck on Koi no Yokan.

They have changed, and so have we.

5 Likes
303

inb4 Kaoru decided to go Dimlim on our asses

Which honestly makes me think that they were BSing with “going simpler for this album”. Went through the whole MD for the third time today and, while it was a much easier experience this time, most of the time I also had some questions about their riff-writing. Thank fuck RPG_96 does the god’s job and is now releasing MD instrumental covers with tabs, so I can at least discern what is going on in some songs (There’s nothing else got much clearer for me only after his vid).

I dunno, maybe this album is gonna hit me when I’m 75 while barely existing on a hospital bed, dunno. Till then, I will either be going through several songs that did get my attention OR till when they release July’s twoday gig BD.

2 Likes
304

If everything that was judged as an insult or offensive by one person on the Internet was objectively that, then literally everything would qualify

like if i said Kyo was a bad dog dad who smelled like shit, sure, it would be hard interpret that as anything but an insult lol. But that’s pretty different from heated discussion about a piece of art

3 Likes
305

I agree that Mortal Downer isn’t really loaded with hooks and is more of a vibe, but En En and Hizumi to Ame get stuck in my head on a regular basis.

2 Likes
306

Karou needs to go full stephen carpenter and just chug the 8th string already

307

The boys just might be tapped out for the time being. I haven’t felt engaged by them since Arche. Gave that a play last week and, wow, it’s aged so well. Lots of interesting layers, strong compositions, good choruses, melodies, and riffs up the wazoo.

While I didn’t hate Mortal Downer, it’s got nearly none of that. But I think that’s ok. Sometimes, a solid 5/10 is all you need. At the very least they’re not retreading a past album as blatantly as Phalaris, so we get something a little fresher.

They’re definitely past their peak (DDS in my opinion). However, I can think of many bands that have meandered after this point in their career but come back swinging all of a sudden.

Either way, if they drop this on wax I’m picking it up regardless.

8 Likes
308

This is arguably the biggest issue of their post Arche stuff for me.

If their current mediocre to good (imo) songwriting at least sounded good it would make a lot of these songs worth coming back to, but when the songwriting is mediocre to good AND it sounds like garbage it makes me want to listen to almost anything else

1 Like
309

Yeah the one thing that pissed me off about the mix in phalaris is how in ochita THEY MADE THE BREAKDOWN LOFI!? HELLO?

4 Likes
310

Gotta be one of the worst decisions they’ve ever made.

4 Likes
311

Who the hell thought that was a good idea?

1 Like
312

Insulated world felt too light like it didnt have much bass… and now their latest two albums are so muddy like someone is constantly doing some heavy diarreah farting into the mic in the background. I wish we could meet eachother in the middle. Like someone wrote arche is so good with so many beautiful melodies and choruses.

313

Ive now settled on the opinion that the start doesnt do much for me but all of tracks 4 and onward are on constant repeat. Still no dum spiro spero for me but thats also probably easily my favorite album of all time and this is probably easily gonna be a top 3 diru album for me a year from now

2 Likes
314

En’en sounds like a logical continuation of Lotus and 13. Next time (if there even will be the next time) they should be radio silent on who wrote what so we can have a guessing game.

4 Likes
315

I haven’t listened to the single version of Ochita in forever. Is the Phalaris version really that much different as far as that one section? I remember it always sounding like it was coming thru an AM radio broadcast.

1 Like
316

The lo-fi breakdown was definitely added just for the album version, but I think it makes the song a lot better lol. Gives it a hint of dynamics

317

Okay, I just compared the two and yeah, the breakdown in the album version is definitely more muffled. It does provide better dynamics. Single version still had a weird low quality broadcast sound to it; all treble and no low end.

Biggest crime with the album version is the way they buried Toshiya. Especially the outro when he hits that big dissonant chord. It’s barely noticeable now.

318

I remember being really excited getting their first live release that had Ochita, all stoked to hear it hit without the lo-fi. And then they fucking made it lo-fi in post!!!

Which led me to ask the question “what does it sound like live in the room to people?” Are they filtering everything in the FOH mix? how does that then sound to anybody close enough to the stage to get both the FOH AND the un-processed stage volume? Sure the guitars are often a Kemper/AxeFX/Quad Cortex unit going direct and more trigger modules than microphones on the drum kit, but those cymbals are still gonna sound BRIGHT AND CRISP to anybody close enough to the stage.

I’m at least grateful that Ochita is the first track it’s side for the vinyl pressing, so the fact that it’s juuuuuuuust noticeably quieter of a master [at least digitally] than the rest of the album doesn’t bother me when I put PHALARIS on my turntable - by the time I’ve taken disc 1 off and dropped the needle into side C, it’s been long enough for the volume of Utsutsu to have left my immediate working memory and it isn’t jarring anymore.

I’ve thought way too hard about Ochita and the ramifications of its studio production…

To me I’ve always felt that the bass in TIW was actually quite present. It isn’t DEEP bass, it’s centered above the kick’s fundamental rather than below it. But it’s got a very strong midrange push in the bass tone, which imo cuts through the wall of Kaoru and Die’s guitar tones pretty well.

He also backed off on the clank!! I think TIW was a moment where Toshiya looked at how much he’d been slapping over the last several records and decided to focus less on percussive slap and more on melodic lines that wind around the guitar parts. There’s a good chunk of spots on the record where it felt to me like Toshiya was back in the headspace he was in when writing his bass parts for Uroboros!

It sounds like the tone he was going after was based off of the sound of a P-Bass or a J-Bass while only using the bridge pickup, plugged into a big Ampeg with the input cranked and the mids pushed hard.

319

Finally, I can talk about the album after countless listens.

I’ll go over the pros and cons.

-the overall sound of the album; it’s easy to listen to on the first listen. It doesn’t get tiresome, even though it has 14 tracks.

-Kyo’s voice sounds realistic, which is also good for me, since I suffer watching his live DVDs. Every time he plays a difficult song, I worry that he’ll sing off-key. I think this album can hold its own. I know many expect him to make a lot of changes, but patience is also good.

-My favorite tracks are: Discard, Bloodline, Hizumi no Ame, MOBS, and Demand (not counting The Devil In Me, which I’m one of the few who have loved since its release).

-The live performance and tracklist of the concert on Blu-ray are excellent.

-It’s true that the mastering still doesn’t convince me. It has that same distorted quality I feel in Phalaris and TIW. -The album starts off strangely. ISOLATION feels unnecessary; it’s not a memorable single, and then Kaijin ni Kisu comes in, which feels long, although it doesn’t sound bad. Too many “Кто это поднял Ты дьявол?”

-“Void” and “no end” feel incomplete to me. I had the same feeling about Kamui on Phalaris. Songs with potential, but they don’t develop the way I’d like.

I wanted an album version of The Devil in Me.

I don’t like the album covers.

For me, the album is an 8 out of 10 (within DeG).

My top 5:

-Arche
-Dum Spiro Spero
-The Unraveling
-The Insulated World (i want a Remastered & Expanded release)
-Mortal Downer

As you can see, I much prefer DEG’s current work to their classic albums. Gauze, for example, is “DEG pops” to me.

4 Likes
320

I vaguely remember hearing it live and they still did the lofi shit but its obviously less notable

321

Both the single and album version of Ochita have the lo-fi breakdown, it’s just noticeably worse on the album.

Curiously, the band may have stopped adding that lo-fi effect to the breakdown, because this recording from 2023 doesn’t have it – and it sounds way better as a result.

1 Like