Honestly, that’s probably the best description for TIW I’ve ever seen.
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I still wonder why the bass on TIW sounds so hollow after so many various people helped to mixed it.
Hahaha thats gold. 
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So i’ve been starting to rearrange my DEG playlist again, combining what i consider the weaker songs of Vulgar and Six Ugly (sans the title track) resulting to this abdomination
What do you think?
this is super accurate and also i think explains why literally no other album by any artist sounds like this one - bc why tf would it, it’s objectively a bad way to sound
but i love that
it’s just a really strange, fresh and unexpected way for things to go. And in a sense, the songs don’t seem to be written/recorded unaware of this fact? if that makes any sense?
i think any other diru album’s material would sound pretty fucked w/ this album’s treatment. But the last two tracks, there’s something great about the way they’re two different takes - prog dirge and pop anthem - on this sludgy rolling boxy machine of sound.
…i’m still looking for a nice way to describe Phalaris. but it took me over a year to find this appreciation for TIW, so there’s that
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It’s funny you say that because to me it’s actually the primary culprit I think of MOST of my issues with the album 
When I listen to the live versions of the songs the feel… well, more alive, for lack of a less repetitive way of saying it. That higher frequency range just breathes more in a way I personally find really pleasing
I did have an epiphany yesterday though with an entirely unrelated band - with ‘Yellow & Green’ onward Baroness’ records always seem to have a similar vibe to me, especially when it comes to frequency balance. The top end is very soft and is shaved off pretty early but gently, and there’s very little sub bass going on. And if you’re playing their albums at a low volume, the more chaotic parts can get mushy and incoherent. But if you’re listening on good speakers or in a car and you just crank it? It all comes together. Almost like they’re knowingly taking advantage of the human ear’s equal-loudness contour. Might be worth trying it with ‘The Insulated World’ now with this in mind, I don’t think I’ve ever done a SERIOUS listen of it at high volumes!!
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oh!!! ok now we’re getting into shit like those scientists and my mind is racing bc i might be starting to understand some mix questions i’ve had since forever
bc - i’ve never listened to this album at a low volume!
or… i think i’ve just conditioned myself listening to “listening volume” music infrequently enough that what i’m hearing can’t be judged & doesn’t represent what’s made - same as you’d hear say a speaker with a sheet of paper or a pillow on top of it and you wouldn’t think “strange mix decision” - you’d think, ah, there is a sheet or paper or a pillow on top of that speaker.
and that might explain why i’m so confused?? when people say albums i like - specifically albums whose mastering i hold in especially high regard - don’t have much bass. when it’s the bass mixing being one of the specific factors why i like the mix!
i’ve never felt that TIW lacks bass or sub freqs, and when you’re meant to hear them i think they come through w/ very little trouble. BUT like you just made me realize, i’m literally never looking for those unless i’m in my car, audio tuned as flat flat as i can get it, at a volume i couldn’t talk over without yelling. compared to the rest of theirs, absolutely i’ve always felt this album favours the mids - i remember when it came out people called it ‘woody’ & ‘boxy’, and that’s not /wrong/
but ofc, the fletcher-munsons flatten more out the louder you go and i THINK the TL;DR of all of this is that TIW was simply mastered for/at louder volumes than other diru albums. And compared to other diru albums, the sound of this album at a low volume was moreso an afterthought.
ACTUALLY if y’all forgive me continuing on this epiphany ramble - i think this is a moment of tremendous clarity as to why i respond to 90s & early 2000s mixes the way i do! i first heard mucc thru their music around albums 5-9, and made my way to their earlier albums later. Diru i heard gauze first, but thought ‘huh’ all the way to Withering, where i started to like the sound of the albums right as i heard them. i thought 90s mixes sounded tinny, simple, frail. chimey even, like parts were missing. And bc they confused me, i played them quietly if at all.
wasn’t until i started to love the songwriting “despite” the mix that i would turn these early albums up - and the rest is history, by now these are far and away my favourite albums as well as style of mixing. And i think you/i just made the connection that it’s for the same reason - 90s albums (& early 2000s) were moreso mastered at a higher volume assuming they’d be occupying more of your focus and attention. Whereas 2005 and on, moreso it seems to be trending towards albums mastered at lower volumes, so that at no loud(quiet?)ness do bass presence and ultra-highs drop out. And the result of that would be that 2005+ (ROUGH GUESS YEAR btw not scientifically backed) music moreso sounds ‘right’ at the volumes we play music and talk over, and mostly sounds great and still fine when cranked up. But 2004- and for some fucking reason TIW, they sound funny and thin at low volumes bc they’re moreso expecting you to crank them to assess their sound.
i don’t know if it does to literally anyone else but that all makes sense to me!
Best of the both worlds. Thank you.
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They opened a new webstore with merch for overseas fans:
https://twitter.com/DIRENGREY_ENG/status/1728383039653503168?t=6LxmDhsptuI2WOSwkfLMDw&s=19
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This is like the shittiest merch I’ve ever seen lmao
Bravo DEG!!! A companion to Galaxy Broad so potent in its irony, it can’t be called anything but “art”
Eight quid for a single coaster? Are they having a laugh?
Shipping seems to be per item, so it only gets more expensive with more items added to the cart.
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The colored tees are so funny to me. They’re unexpected and look more like bootlegs that somebody made to sell to people at a dir en grey concert waiting in line to enter the venue.
Also, someone on the merch team ran out of ideas real fast. Because the only thing they could come up with was plastering the logo on everything.
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Thankfully this says “initial collection” so there’s hope for more creativity down the road.
How fitting, now you can not only buy the official DIR EN GREY trash can, but also the trash to go along with it. Neat!
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To be fair thats not a bad price for postage for a couple of t shirts these days. I posted one CD to Germany not long ago and cost about the same. If that was just for the coaster though… can you imagine?
wow, they are so bad…
(I think I’ll take the BAND NAME bucket hat)
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The only thing I like is the pint glass. But that is overpriced so f that. Haha.
I kinda like the dad hat… I’ll revisit the store in a few months, it’s too cold to wear anything like that now.
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“More creativity” will mean using a different font
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