The Devil in Me is WILD. There’s a lot of shit going on and it’s going to take time to fully appreciate and conceptualize its form.
A part of me was worried that their emphasis on Gauze lately meant the band was due for a more radio friendly sound and would start shifting in that direction.
I’m glad I was wrong (for now at least). The Gauze remakes are, of course, fantastic.
Hold up, where at?
Im tryna find it but am coming up empty
It’s still time-locked unless you use a VPN from a country that is already April 24.
Kyopera, Cleankyo and Goblinkyo enter in a bar
Having heard the full song now, I can say I enjoy it a ton. It’s a fun track, and I can say it is growing on me already.But I wonder how they will do it live, with all those vocal tracks interweaving
OG Cage was an song I was hoping they remake for a while now. It was always one of my favorites, but I wanted to know what they would do with it given the opportunity. My hope was they would break the song apart and do something wierd and wild with it, but they chose to follow the template of the Numbers Single. Close to the original, but with some tasteteful changes. I enjoyed the wispers after the bass solo. The guitars are very discret on the mix, but I can see why they made this choice this time. It’s an rythm section song, blast toshiya and shinya on the mix.
Yokan is an song very of It’s time, right? They would never do something like this now a days. I enjoyed how they updated this one. Kyo sounds really good in this one, but he is a bit drowned in the guitars. The solos are nice.
I liked this release quite a bit. I can see why some people may not enjoy this one, and I won’t disagree with many of the complaints. Enjoyed it nevertheless
(Didn’t see I was in the news thread before posting, sorry for the trouble 
)
DITM chorus needs this gif along, not an AI video:
This was a huge problem from 2012-2014 or so. The stuff from The Unraveling in particular sounded really thin live because all the vocal layering was gone.
About the remakes of Cage and Yokan, I think the same as the previous single, they left me cold. They seem like versions made for a “clean” live performance, without complicating life too much in these upcoming concerts. I miss when they did more risky things in the remakes.
about the devil in me, the same as everyone, curious about what kyo’s voice will be like live with this song.
Dropping what i said from Reddit:
I’ll start it like this: I have been a fan since 2003/2004ish, when Vulgar/The Final came out. I’ve seen this band go from good to incredible in many years’ time. I’ve seen them try things outside of the box and been amazed at their resiliency to keep dialing down on being true to themselves. However, through these last 10 or so years, they’ve put out almost the same song 3 different ways (“Un deux” worked, So let’s write it again for “Ningen wo Kaburu”! Fuck that was good, let’s do it again for “Ochita”!), Shinya has unlearned the drums in such a weird way which is just IMPRESSIVE, and their mixing for these tunes have become so hodge podge in terms of guitar and bass tone, and suffocating due to the amount of compression that’s being stuffed into the main mix. There’s often times too much going on to be cohesive.
That’s where my issue lies, with TDIM.
It is an absolute feast of a song, with the members doing their individual parts with precision. If only that precision meant that they sounded in sync with one another. Often times through the song, it sounds like they’re playing multiple different songs at the same time, and trying to match pace and rhythm with one another and falling flat. Kyo’s need to be heard pierces through the mix, and quite aggressively at that. So many layers in this track that make me wonder if it’s meant to be performed at all.
The remakes sound like garbage as well: Shinya’s drumming sounds as if he’s falling down the stairs, rather than the elaborate fumbling rhythm in the original songs. Kyo sounds MARKEDLY younger in these tracks which is fucking bonkers. Is it real or is it AI? The guitar tones sound as if they were picked out by an edgy teenager constantly needing more gain on their Line 6 Spyder 3 amplifiers – NOT. GOOD.
Anyhow, that’s my take.
So, who’s credited with production on this single?
Sustain the Untruth, Ningen wo Kaburu, Utafumi, Ochita Koto no Aru Sora, and now The Devil in Me are my least favorite songs they’ve released as singles. I did not enjoy Oboro, but it grew on me over time. I listened to The World of Mercy to death. I don’t count 19990120 as a proper single since it was made for their anniversary.
While I do enjoy the chorus of The Devil in Me, the rest of the song sounds meh, with Kyo being the worst aspect of the whole song. What is this screaming/growling thing he’s doing? His mouth sounds full of slush. Can he leave it with Petit Bra, lol? I generally love all his weird goblin noises, so I was surprised this time around when I DIDN’T.
The other songs are fine, I guess. I do not enjoy Kyo’s voice on the remakes either, lol. He sounds so flat and bored to my ears.
I enjoy TDIM. It’s… sorta clunky, in a way, but for some reason it works for me. I’m annoyed by the sheer DRYNESS of the drums - there’s no space or ambience on them, which is a bit disorienting. Did they forget to turn up the room mics? But musically the song works for me. It feels like something that will be towards the middle of the next record, an energy reset before tackling the back half. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
That super modulated guitar taking over for the music box in the intro melody of Cage is really cool!! If the point of song remakes is “a song from the past updated for who we are now,” I weirdly think that little intro is the single best representation of that mindset. And reminds me in a way of how Coheed & Cambria would take the same little melody across their first four albums as a motif, played with a different orchestration of instruments in each case to tie everything together but represent different aspects of the story the albums tell.
Kyo sounds like he’s having more fun on Yokan then on Cage or anything from 19990120, more energized and invested in the performance. It captures the VIBE of the original overall, and this might be my favorite of any of the Gauze-era remakes (though time will have to tell - both from repeated listens and the possibility of more lol)
The mix across the board is fascinatingly strange. That snare is so tubby, almost like the DSS Budokan DVD mix… This is a Tom Lord-Alge mix? Really??? Where’s the EXPLOSIVE drums you and your brother are known for, homie? Did somebody play a joke on you and turn off the filter sections of your SSL? Where’s the snare reverb, the compression, the everything? but then the bass sounds solid as hell, and the guitars are fat and WIDE. And the guitar solo on Yokan sounds fantastic.
And so, the sisyphean task of not nitpicking the production on a Diru release continues…
ETA: Fuck all the complaints about Tue’s mixes BRING HIM BACK
According to the liner notes: Tom Lord-Alge on mixing, Brian Gardner on mastering, and Koji Maruyama was the tracking engineer except for sessions at Studio SUNSHINE, tracked by Keisuke Kamata
same as phalaris, then
Phalaris had a better snare at least lmao
it’s pretty baffling how the production by grammy-awarded individuals sounds like this while petit brabancon has some no-name(?) japanese sound people and they sound good lol
I mean that’s just because dog band is better.
We must make peace with the fact the subaquatic production is part of their dark and mysterious wordview. They are so avant-garde that we can’t comprehend that the mud is intrinsic to the deeply intellectual soundspace they are creating as auteurs
You see, we are traped in a journey back to the womb with Kyo, the ultimate unbirth. We must feel the the soundwaves as a baby would hear floating on the amniotic fluid
I was so excited by the remakes of Cage and Yokan and I’m so disappointed, Yokan was okay, not good, not the worst. Cage…they absolutely butchered Cage, worst remake by a mile!
Personally thought Cage and Yokan were perfect in every way so wasn’t expecting them to ever upstage those. I don’t think they did, but new renditions are always appreciated. I do like some choices like the beginning guitar for Cage - not better than the original music box or worse but nice.
I like it - it’s impossible to sing along with but sounds unique and manic.