it would be cool if they added sangeki no yoru to spotify
Hibiki is a cool opener
Love when he gets so into the music when he performs live in Diru, but as well as his other bands!
I’ve seen the live and it’s one of the best they’ve recorded in time. I was afraid that my voice would go away in Otogi or Schadenfreude, but it came out perfect. I’m glad this live is coming out on Bluray!!! I was pretty disappointed with the above 2.
2 Likes
Every time they release something I think “I love it, but I already know they won’t be able to do that new thing live, so I will be happy with whatever they can pull off with it when a live performance comes out” and then they just pull it off live.
2 Likes
Random and possible hot take: Insulated World has some of Shinya’s best drum work. Not to mention the raw sound of the album makes any sample replacement far less obvious. Like I think his performance on Ningen wo Kaburu is really inspired with the way he accents the upbeats, not to mention his drum fills at the end that really drive the ending of the song home.
Like I was super critical of Shinya during the DSS and Arche eras, especially live. But he seemed to be more in his comfort zone for TIW.
6 Likes
Big agree on it having some of his best drumming. And he seemed really in his zone when I saw them in NYC on that tour, no struggling with any of it
Hard disagree on the samples being less obvious though, those snare one-shots stick out sore as hell to me still. The toms seem to be less static, but snare fills are all super noticeable to me 
I’m not denying that the drums are sample replaced and quantized to shit, but they don’t sound as flat and lifeless as DSS, the Uroboros remaster, or Phalaris. Arche too, I suppose, but what sticks out the most for me with Arche is all the reverb. Also how robotic a lot of Rinkaku sounds because Shinya chose to drone on in the chorus with persistent 8th notes on the kick drum. Apparently it’s a choice he regrets, because he said it was one of the more difficult songs for him to play live.
1 Like
HARD same on the reverb on Arche. It’s got a lot of my favorite songs ever from the band, but those drums sound like they were placed in a fucking cathedral. For some songs it kinda works (e.g. Kaishun wouldn’t be as impactful emotionally to me if the drums were dryer, the space and ambience on those shells REALLY sells the song for me), but in others it’s supremely frustrating. Rinkaku’s is cool in concept, it’s a very different way of approaching a chorus for a drummer and really gives the song an identity. But the roboticness of the samples, yeah… it’s a lot and gets overbearing
It’s funny, I feel like the tom samples are always more realistic - and I KNOW they’re using samples on the toms because in pictures of Shinya’s kit both live and in the studio, there’s trigger modules on the toms but no microphones - there’s more variance in the velocities and you get a WAY more natural feel. It’s almost as if they let the velocities triggered by Shinya’s actual playing stay for the toms, but then for the kick and snare just SLAM every hit up to 127. It gives his drum kit a very disconnected sound - it’s as if the cymbals and the toms are part of one kit in one room, and the snare and kick are from a different kit in a different room. Maybe a whole different building down the street
And I’ve felt this way since at least DSS
1 Like
I’m not a drummer so my opinion may be completely based in idiocy, but it feels to me that Shinya is an incredibly lazy drummer. He’s very clearly technically talented yet refuses to really push himself. Even in live videos outside of the rare performance, he seems to never be trying. His movements are sluggish at best even in fast segments.
I recall an interview where he even said that the simple “kick + hi-hat, snare + hi-hat” rock drums were his favourite to play and that he hated playing technical stuff. Mind you he’s great at technical stuff and even his worst sounds good in live videos, but he really just doesn’t seem to actually care overall, which seems very strange given that in many songs his drumming is (to me) an integral part of the experience.
1 Like
Yes yes! I’m not a drummer but I am a bassist and guitarist who’s had the pleasure of playing with some very good drummers and I completely agree - and I’ve seen people both drummers and not say the same thing about Shinya for a whiiiiile.
He’s very skilled. He’s one of those stupidly good drummers who could probably pull off anything you asked of him if you gave him the time to practice. And he’s been doing cool rhythms and strange back-beats that give the songs an identity even at the start of the band’s career (like how he managed to make 5/4 feel really natural in Aoi Tsuki)
I suspect he doesn’t push himself because he’s somewhat bored? There’s moments live where he seems really focused, and he can get intense, and I love those moments. But a lot of the time yeah he just seems to like… be there. He seems to be the least interested in what he’s doing, the least invested, out of anybody in the band
2 Likes
I could be wrong, but based on both his personal social media + snippets of interviews I’ve read translated to english, he overall seems to be the least involved socially with the other members, and the least involved in metal as a whole. All his social media from what I’ve seen involves him interacting with early period VK musicians and more rock leaning artists overall.
Of all the members to potentially leave Dir En Grey voluntarily he’d be the least surprising, as he just seems to have the least interest in what they do (since 2004) overall.
1 Like
He almost DID quit around that period, right?
I think we’re at a point where if any one of the boys quits, the band is done. It’s been what, 26 years now? With not a single lineup change in that span, we’ve long been at the point where if you replace any individual in the band, no matter how skilled their replacement, it wouldn’t be the same because each individual contributes so much to the overall sound of the band, even when they had nothing to do with writing any given song. The sound would shift too much imo, it just wouldn’t be the same band anymore
But yeah, he would probably be the first to dip
1 Like
Indeed, if someone leave the band it’s finish. I don’t imagine them continue without the whole team.
I don’t really understand how it’s possible to say Shinya is the least involve in the band. I mean yes he is shy, introvert. But from what I hear he is still creative as a drummer. Thats the only thing we ask him. But yes, Dir en grey as whole it’s going down for a while. I don’t know why they continue, it seems to be a company that they have to keep, in order to make money.
Hot take.
IMHO they’ve never put out a bad album. Even The Insulated World is great despite the dodgy master.
They still put everything into their live shows. Seem to enjoy what they do. Not sure what more one could ask for.
8 Likes
Yeah I’m not continually wowed by everything they do, but I just wouldn’t invest any more time or energy into them if I thought they didn’t still have something to offer me. I have my preferences on them and it is fun to give them a bit of grief since they’re so big in our scene - but I would happily go on record saying Dir en grey is A Good Band
11 Likes
It isn’t that he isn’t involved at all with the music, it just seems based on interviews from the past and his general vibes live that he’s the one with the least invested at this point creatively - not that he doesn’t care at all, just that he’s the one that cares the least
I totally agree with you there. Have said before i dont understand why some people continue to listen to them when all they do is moan about everything they do. Personally I dont really dislike much beyond some of the weird remixes and the few pop punk vibe songs in the discography amd honestly their more recent stuff totally vibes with me, perhaps more than more of their early/mid career albums. I dont expect everyone to agree but i still think personally theyre a great band who are continuing to develop and mostly put out really good, diverse and creative stuff. I also love that they actually are just really unique sounding from start to present in their career really.
1 Like
[quote=“NewsMan, post:1388, topic:342, full:true”]
He almost DID quit around that period, right[/quote]
I think he wanted to quit when the band started to steer towards being less visual. He also more or less said he hated Marrow of a Bone, so I really feel like Shinya was the one that they had to drag kicking and screaming into the more extreme western style metal stuff.
Shinya is a fantastic drummer, and he’s really creative with his patterns and the way he uses cymbals. The problem is his feet. A lot of DEG’s heavier material just doesn’t hit that hard because Shinya falls back on that single kick blast beat so much. It leaves a lot of space that makes some songs feel empty. The heavy sections in Keigaku no Yoku and Zetsuentai both feel uninspired because Shinya is simply going “bum tap bum tap.”
We know Shinya can do a more traditional blast because he did it briefly in The Inferno. We know he can play faster double bass because he did it in Saku and Red Soil. I think he just doesn’t want to. Supposedly, at one point, he was playing while wearing weights in his ankles to improve his kick drum work. I think he abandoned that idea.
Another thing about his live performances is I think he focuses more on making big dramatic movements to add to the band’s visual presence. He’s not very economic with his motions; big sweeping swings, raising his arm super high before coming down on a cymbal. It looks cool, but I think it creates some inconsistencies in his playing as a trade off. But, again, this only applies to lives.
3 Likes