DIR EN GREY

[NowhereGirl]

@nekkichi

they do have a lot in common, like every non-single track out of their 2cool4VK decade

… what?

Are you saying that every song between six Ugly and DSS that isn’t a single is just generic copy/paste placeholder stuff? Maybe I’m misunderstanding… something.

I’m now going to list two non-single songs from each release from the era I assume you speak of. None of these are similar to each other in any way beyond being made by the same band.

Ugly / children
AMBER / NEW AGE CULTURE
dead tree / Jesus Christ R’n R
艶かしき安息、躊躇いに微笑み / THE DEEPER VILENESS
STUCK MAN / 蜷局
THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB /「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨

Also, they only dropped the VK aesthetic for maybe 2.5 albums, not 10 years.

[Missa]

give me 2025 diru in standard tuning or give me death

[rsm_rain]

I mean i think there’s something to this. On like a structural level not superficial like yeah the style of guitars is way different. But different sense compared to the rest of DSS is a lot more pop, has a lot more “readable on a first listen” melody. That’s more WTD’s philosophy than the rest of DSS.

compared to the rest of DSS, i could see Different Sense closer in STRUCTURE to the writing they did around WTD than Uroboros or MOAB. Tho it definitely has the soundfont and the moment-to-moment styling of the rest of the album it’s on.

So this ends up making some sense to me, even tho i wouldn’t have drawn this particular comparison myself, and i was as confused as everyone else at first before realizing i couldn’t say in any way that wasn’t stupid and shallow why i felt it was wrong

And now for having spent five minutes thinking about it instead of sticking with the first thought of “no that’s wrong” i get a better (different??) sense of why that track ended up becoming one i like to introduce people to diru with that i couldn’t articulate prior. Neat.

[nekkichi]

@NowhereGirl

Are you saying that every song between six Ugly and DSS that isn’t a single is just generic copy/paste placeholder stuff?

umm no, I’m not saying that (mostly because I consider vulgar to be a full-on VK album - everything about it was, down to gds being recycled by younged bands for two decades since)

to me, they dropped vk looks and aesthetics on kodou PV, so everything that comes between first moab single (apparently, that’s 2006, so everything up to unraveling and arche singles - almost 10 years it is.)

[quote=“NowhereGirl, post:2360, topic:342”]艶かしき安息、躊躇いに微笑み / THE DEEPER VILENESS
STUCK MAN / 蜷局
THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB /「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨
[/quote]

I hate most of the songs you’ve picked for this equally so i don’t even know what to add.

considering they’re written and performed by the same person who dropped dominus a few months ago as an ambivalent commentary on something, I imagine I’m not the only person who doesn’t attach a lot of value to their western bro-kei stretch. (not meant to be a commentary on whoever enjoys that period.)

@rsm_rain

I mean i think there’s something to this

it gets more apparent if you’re like getting over a certain band but have standout highlights that keep the nostalgia going - it’s the reason I’m only annoyed by a very certain type of their song choice, not everything I can just ignore and go onto stanning something else.

thanks for sharing your thoughts, btw

[Ro_pls]

Im gonna be that guy…

Unless we get a bootleg or something of these alleged songs, i find speculating on what it’ll sound like-a headache. Damn near every single time there’s speculation, what we end up getting is a complete 180, if anything. The descriptions are also nothing burgers. “Half this-half that” thanks…that’s almost all of their discography. Part of me was even tempted to write “maybe it would be more constructive to have info on what tuning/key” but no. They’ve been up and down the fretboards of their 6 and 7 strings. And Dir, like many other bands can swap out Guitars between songs seamlessly. So positioning on a setlist is also a pointless measure.

At least with the GazettE and Lynch, who are KNOWN for copy-pasting, speculation on new music makes a lil more sense. I find it senseless for Diru who can be a tough to predict.

Yes, this is a lil rant-ish but we’ve been through this too many times, especially on the old forum. This is how you end up with whatever the hell’s been going on in the last few posts and also ppl working themselves up/overhyping, only to be let down.

[foccius]

As we all know per his famous posts on X (née twitter) not even kyo knows how the new dir en grey songs sound like

[NowhereGirl]

Saying Machiavellism and DIFFERENT SENSE are the same just because the structure is slightly similar is like saying DEG’s JESSICA and Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi are comparable because they use a verse/chorus pop formula and came out in the same year. What, are most Youtube videos the same because they follow similar structures to one another (intro/sponsor/content/like, comment, subscribe, and hit the bell)? Or is every building in the world the same because they’re all comprised of some arrangement of doors, windows, and interior rooms? Is every book the same because they contain characters who interact with each other to form a narrative, and are written with words? Is every movie the same because they’re viewed on screens?

Absolute nonsense.

As I said above, the non-VK era was about 2.5 albums long. It lasted from the end of Withering to the end of UROBOROS (the latter of which was definitely a VK album; they just didn’t dress VK). I don’t get why you’re saying it lasted almost 10 years; at most, it was 5 (2006-2011).

DUM SPIRO SPERO

The Unraveling

輪郭 -Rinkaku-. Need I say more?

@nekkichi

they do have a lot in common, like every non-single track out of their 2cool4VK decade

This comment is still an absolute mystery to me. You really consider every song that wasn’t a single to be comparably similar? The examples I listed above were to demonstrate that they’re markedly different from one another, not to ask if you whether you liked them or not.

I don’t understand this conversation at all.

[nekkichi]

@NowhereGirl

Or is every building in the world the same because they’re all comprised of some arrangement of doors, windows, and interior rooms?

they all follow a certain formula and reliance on building codes, otherwise they fall apart.

I’m not sure why you have this hyperfixation spell going on with my comment - I’m a known hater of their entire bro-kei phase (I coined “kyopera” as the go to pejorative of what Kyo does vocally, mostly in the context of butchering their old classics), but I mean go off if their pre-arche sellout phase to you defines them as a band. it does so to a fair amount of people in their fandom - I’m not sure what exactly happens when you need to type a page of text contradicting my subjective impression idk.

to me, their SWILL phase is particularly tragic because back then, they used to be one of the several FWD bands - when Deg went MOO, we still had rentrer en soi, and ex-kagerou people were all involved with the scene.
if they do the same jump into douchebro pandering now (not that it appears they’re about to do it), there’s no one replacing them on the same level, so…

@NowhereGirl

輪郭 -Rinkaku-. Need I say more?

most of the people don’t judge a band by a single website promo bit - rinkaku video does not feature styled band members, so it’s not that different from ASOM from a non-VK album in that regard.
that STU look is what any band in Sweden, or, for that matter, any Asian non-matel band could/would put out at a comparable timeframe - we had someone trolling this board about gazette pinching looks from KPOP - Shinya aside, those are all a notch above regular bro-metal looks wise, but that’s just the band splurging on fashions.

same way, uroboros for 90 % of people who know what it is would be forever imprinted with skrillex-hair Toshiya, tracksuit Kyo look of the album PV - that’s just the way album marketing works.

@NowhereGirl

You really consider every song that wasn’t a single to be comparably similar?

you really don’t have their post-2006/pre-arche music blending into vaguely 3 types of self-repeating, formulaic album/b-side songs, with first singles getting more complex arrangements/more varied song structure? - and the last part doesn’t even apply to dozing green or lotus - which to me would similarly fall into “we are very lyrical bois… sometimes, we chase the white girl coin if we are tired of playing for angry white boys.”

@NowhereGirl

I don’t understand this conversation at all.

I’m surprised that it lasted this long, particularly in absense of any early bootlegs or actual music teasers from the band directly… but this band’s thread has its own vibe that stays very consistent through the ages.

[NowhereGirl]

@nekkichi

I’m not sure why you have this hyperfixation spell

Diagnosed autism. What you said was weird to me, and I’m trying to understand it.

@nekkichi

I’m not sure what exactly happens when you need to type a page of text contradicting my subjective impression

My “page of text” was only three paragraphs! Also, I’m not interested in what you think of the band, only that your statement (DIFFERENT SENSE being Machiavellism pt.2) makes absolutely zero sense.

@nekkichi

rinkaku video does not feature styled band members

Yes, it does!

(etc…)

@nekkichi

you really don’t have their post-2006/pre-arche music blending into vaguely 3 types of self-repeating, formulaic album/b-side songs

No.

Some songs are similar-ish… for example, the guitar riff in 懐春 (Kaishun) is very close to the one in DIABOLOS. Another good one is the reuse of a vocal melody in かすみ Kasumi (A/Ab/E) which reappears in a different key in Higeki ha Mabuta… (C/B/G). But I’m pretty sure these specific cases are intentional.

Over any band’s career, some repetition is to be expected. The fact that DEG has experimented this much and produced so many songs that are distinct and immediately recognisable is praiseworthy, especially since the band has been around for ~30 years at this point.

Honestly, I don’t see any decline in the quality of writing since the very beginning (except maybe that one line of lyrics on MARROW… “I’ll rape your daughter on your grave” is gross).

@nekkichi

sometimes, we chase the white girl coin if we are tired of playing for angry white boys.”

Maybe the band writes the songs they want to write rather than trying to “chase” a particular demographic, and sometimes they’re a bit harder, sometimes a bit softer?
This practice is unchanged since MISSA, where they dumped GARDEN and 秒「」深
(Byo Shin) back-to-back.
From the concerts I’ve seen on DVD/Blu ray, the Japanese crowds have plenty of women who are just as into the heavy songs as the poppier ones. I may be white and female but still enjoy both extremes DEG offers. There were definitely diverse audiences at the shows I’ve attended. I don’t think race has very much to do with it.

[geist]

@nekkichi

when Deg went MOO, we still had rentrer en soi

Um, sweetie, rentrer en soi disbanded in 2008. Dum Spiro Spero released in 2011

[nekkichi]

@geist

rentrer en soi disbanded in 2008.

The Marrow of a Bone - Wikipedia ← this pile of poo is from 2007 - which I had to look up - and it’s on the same level as That moo

[nekkichi]

@NowhereGirl

(except maybe that one line of lyrics on MARROW… “I’ll rape your daughter on your grave” is gross).

they have several albums packed with gross lyrics though, I don’t think moab particularly stands out?..

I’ll take that as long as it’s understood as theatrics on their part, not direct encouragement of what the cited quote is describing.

@NowhereGirl

Maybe the band writes the songs they want to write rather than trying to “chase” a particular demographic, and sometimes they’re a bit harder, sometimes a bit softer?

I don’t believe this mostly because the uniform reaction in my clique dating back to the first wacken gig → everything after was “so they’re a western band now? well thanks for the WTD songs” followed by an eye roll.

I also don’t have anything to prove my hunch about the entire bro phase being a commercial, business-only attempt on their end, except for the vague references to in-band tensions around that era, and the fact that said phase is over anyway.

@NowhereGirl

I don’t think race has very much to do with it.

a specific market - USA-headlined western metal scene - not the race.

[geist]

I sometimes wonder if your incoherence is intentional.

Like an AI that’s become self aware, taking on the identity of an old Russian woman whose personality comprises of social media posts made by North American members of the LGBTQ community.

It’s a vibe.

[nekkichi]

@geist

comprises of social media posts made by North American members of the LGBTQ community.

it’s much worse now, my dear, it’s mostly Dworkin starting with this year - which predates social media, but fits within LGB - so it got a good fat dash of sardonic Jewish hag on top of your muchly beloved babushka flavor.

two-in-one for the same price of occupying your head rent-free.

[geist]

That’s all very interesting, now generate an image of a Russian woman sitting at her computer.

[nekkichi]

that’s a feature of your AI wife app, not my profile here! different target markets demand different capabilities.

[geist]

ChatNEKKICHI appears to be malfunctioning again.

[CAT5]

Alright yall funny, but yall gotta chill out with the roastin’ and get back on topic.

[twomonstrous]

Throws back to those times when a certain (Japanese?) outlet asked Kaoru about (at the time) upcoming Uroboros album and his answer caused some netizens to think that DEG are gonna go down the standard tuning, folky experimental-type of Radiohead sound (it fits Kyo, his sukekiyo self though).

Their latest Zan remake made it clear that standard tuning riffs can be “br00tal” by DEG standards as well. Kyo’s vocals are getting punkier (less death-ish) so that might be the next big sell:

残 (ZAN)

[blacktooth]

I like my extreme deg like I like my pizza: crusty