Y’know, I can’t deny humongous effort behind DSS (even though back then I could only say im16andthisisdeep), but…
Nowadays, I just don’t go back to DSS and Arche fully. DSS is just so overtuned and overchugged that when they were trying to one-up Uroboros they also one-upped the concept of music… which also made DSS so unapproachable.
Then they pushed it further with Unraveling which was just them chuggifying old songs.
Meanwhile, despite Arche being a fresh breath after this juggernaut period (i LOVED STU after it was just released l)… Arche also was bloated and full of kinda varied songs, but they also were structured similarly? Two verses and two choruses, a short Solo after the 1st chorus (Kukoku even got one in Sugizo ver.)…
I guess, getting a shorter and more furious, but also more fun&live oriented TIW felt so refreshing to me back then (especially after hearing it live). Opening an album with a Rasetsukoku-esque banger, Toshiya writing the most 2002 fun VoM and also ending an album with a proper closer instead of wtf Revelation of Mankind… it’s probably the album for me that I enjoy listening fully without wanting to skip or pause (even though it could do without Zetsuentai)
I never really got into Arche. There are a few songs I go back to, but I never listen to the full thing. For me it’s too long and the songs are sort of same-y. I think all of its surrounding albums are much better.
Many hot takes now. Suddenly everyone dislikes Arche, their easily best work with almost no fillers. Many of the non-single songs could have been solid singles, revelation for example is such a damn killer one of their best songs in recent years. But ok if Ache mostly is filler then their albums after that are 98% filler
I’m an arche girly. It’s one of my favorite albums. Unfortunately I took a break listening to jrock/vk around 2013-2019 so I missed out when it first released
Y’know, I would have absolutely agreed with this for a while after it was released. The production threw me way off, and I couldn’t really vibe. But then I saw them hit New York on that tour cycle and play the whole record, and suddenly it all clicked in place for me.
Funnily enough, I also had a really hard time with Dum Spiro Spero until that exact same day. Listening to it on the way up to New York to see the TIW show was when I finally “got” DSS and it found it’s place in my pantheon of favorite albums ever.
I never got the crazy love for ARCHE on a musical level. Outside of The Inferno, Behind, Uroko, and maybe Tosei, this album is very flat. The only thing I’ll give it credit for is that to forced the band to dial back. Uroboros was the band’s peak with how well the album and the lives were structured. The decision to try and one up that is why the DSS-Unraveling era hasn’t aged well. Funny enough, I consider that era one of the darkest in DEG’s history. Between the talk of them not recording together, how botched a lot of those songs still sound live, and the injuries (Shinya and Kyo), you can tell DEG kind of lost themselves.
ARCHE was the point zero and since then they’ve strategically found their sound again. The run from Ningen to Phalaris is phenomenal. A lot of it is simple but it has that confidence/unison behind it. I fucking love it dawg. My boys are back.
