just gave Macabre a re-listen for the first time in ages. what a bizarre album, and quite hard to sit through for me nowadays. this time the high points were
deity (for lulz, the hungarian dance kills me every tiem)
wake feels like the most solid song this time around
hotarubi is pretty cool
audrey still slaps a fair amount i think
and honorable mention, macabre is less cool than when i was 14yo but still a little cool. it’s kind of trying ““proggy””
dishonorable mentions:
the wacky bossa nova part in Taiyou no ao
the feeling of listening to song after song of material that wasn’t good enough for gauze
Macabre is the album that one likes when they go against the grain, as an edgy teenager.
Kisou is the edgy black and red Hot Topic outfit you said wasn’t a phase.
Six Ugly is when you drink your first beer at 18, and get really into Disturbed’s Down With The Sickness and Chevelle’s Wonder What’s Next.
Vulgar is the culmination of all of these things, ending when you smoke a Marlboro Red for the first time. Your wardrobe is now exclusively Black Leather Jackets™️ and Southern Metalcore band tees.
I’ll die with you on that hill, to me MACABRE is when they started to be “them” instead of resuming every kote-kei trope into an album (and as harsh as that can sound, i really love GAUZE, they were ultra great at doing that sound)
I think Gauze was a collection of”here’s everything vkei has been so far” and macabre was two more in that style (myaku/wake) but otherwise comprised of the rebound into everything they couldn’t have done on gauze. It’s a bit like what i call a cosplay album that pops on one identity per song but there’s still so much cohesion. Maybe from completely consistent tones & vocal style? In some ways i think it’s their most experimental, bc there’s no way any other diru album could pivot from Macabre to Audrey to Rasetsukoku. Just the right amount, imho, of taking themselves seriously enough to pursue every idea but not too serious that they’d say “we can’t do that, doesn’t fit the Diru Sound”
Best song on Macarbe is Egnirys and I’ll die on that hill.
I find Gauze to be a fun album, Mazohyst is my favorite track on it, full of despair and emotion that I love from Dir En Grey. But it just feels like such a clunky album to me where it’s trying to fit in 90s vkei pop rock with some extreme metal or doom mixed in. Post Gauze, everything started becoming coherent in style.
I think this is enough for me to stop supporting the band, period. I’m not interested in the slightest thing they put out if they’re going to go so set on promoting AI content, replacing their workload with AI or just generally being okay with generative AI in artistic spaces at all. If anyone disagrees that’s okay, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but for me this has killed a band I once thought had really interesting ideas visually and musically.
I dont really understand the point of this either…. Like why would a band of this level who have a budget behind them in a visually orientated scene use the least imaginative way to express ideas rather than work with other human artists and collaborate to keep that artistic world growing and create some truly unique and incredible pieces? Doesnt make sense to me at all.
While I dont support AI some uses of it doesnt really bother me (especially since being bothered isnt going to stop it….) Like the videos at live shows, ok… flyer artwork or MAYBE even album artwork you can get away with it, though obviously as above I’d rather see human collaborations….. but if they are going to start using AI AT ALL to affect the music then they are so done and even more worryingly itd make me start to wonder how many other bands would take that route if artists of that level were getting away with it.
