A lot less worried about their future as soon as I saw the tour is called FAREWELL TO SHADOWS. 
So, you think this band has wide variety of songs ? I’d be curious to read your arguments.
As an opposite example, mucc got a wide variety of songs, they took a lot of risk in their career. Not all the bands follow this path.
They certainly used to.
Nightmare are guilty of being formulaic, derivative and conservative but thats not the same thing as lacking variety. Trying to prove all their songs are the same is going to be much harder to prove as a point than them having career wide variety (be my guest, though).
Mucc has also taken risk but also became much more polarizing band. I’d say Nightmare steadyness is what keeps then one of the very few remaining major Vk acts. (although that only speaks of Mucc’s hability to recover since they’re now bigger than ever, it seems)
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My sentence about ’ the same song again and again ’ was ironic. I was thinking it was obvious, but seems not.
It was exagerated in order to point the lack of variety of their songs. As you said, there is a ’ formula ’ they repeat, and it seems to not be a problem for the audience.
I didn’t say there is a formula, though.
I think they do overuse a very boring structure for the majority of their singles to say the least and that’s disappointing. But even in that constrained frame there’s a good number of flavors they have been exploring over the years even if it’s mostly through arrangement.
English is not my native langage, I speak french.
When I check the definition of ’ formulaic ’ and it’s written ’ What’s the meaning of formulaic?
: produced according to a formula or set of formulas : adhering to set forms or conventions. ’
So, I was thinking it’s the same meaning as ’ formula '.
Despite what I said, there are some songs I listen, like ’ siva ', ’ nothing you lose ’ etc.
It’s because I know the potentials of these guys that It makes me feel disappoint what they do.
i think Ruka’s tracks are the ones that sound similar to eachother! Sakito’s generally more experimental, and Ni~ya’s got his own style too that doesn’t change as much but is pretty different from the main writers’.
Some ナイトメア tracks that sound nothing like the usual:
レゴリスの墓標 - 2022, gothic and dorian but led by a piano - come to think of it if you’re used to mucc this should sound pretty familiar!
落園 - 2015, it’s got this asymetrical / odd feel to the A-melo w/ all the instruments processing around two beats they all come back in time to hit
愛憎ロンド - 2014, jazz kei! but like jazz done right, it’s kinda their specialty. They have a whole-ass pianist; he’s even in the PV. it’s bouncy and free moving, lots of play w/ syncopation and no phoned-in lazy swing.
雪葬/まほら - 2006, a 15-minute ballad split across two tracks, but they’re really the same ~experience~. ig you wont’ like it if you don’t like ballads lol, but i love how ambient & meandering it allows itself to go.
メアリー - 2005, one of my favs of theirs - it’s pretty usual for them to do minor in the verse flipped to the relative majour in the chorus, but here they flip from majour to a parellel minor; ie C → c, and that’s done at the ending which is like three bridges in a row
アクアリア - 2003, all the really good shit is back here ngl. i have no science to base this on other than vibes, but this album imho sits right at the edge between ‘visual kei’ and ‘kote kei’, and this track is the exact midpoint. it legit feels like they don’t know what to do with the chorus, but it’s cool to hear them lean so far into that uncertainty.
ビルドゥングス・ロマン - 2002 punchy angsty indiez early vkei, idk what to say but it’s a lot of fun, with blast beats and big choruses that sound more like ガゼット & Diru than majour label ナイトメア
クラッシュ!?ナイトメアチャンネル - 2002 - really just about every track they did on Speed Disk belongs on here lol, but this one in particular is so crazy, almost verging a bit on black metal with the all harsh vocals and bright grindy guitars, but then there’s this industrial kinda pump & sidechain to the bass & kick
anyway this isn’t like a ‘top ten my favourite ナイトメア track list’, it’s just a few that are interesting to me specifically bc of unconventional songwriting
the whole album of To Be or Not To Be isn’t on youtube, but if you pay attention to the guitars i think they’re some of the strangest guitar partswriting in all vkei - some songs are almost all the way through scratchy sounds & arpeggios with very few chord progressions or melodies to pick up on, but imho they totally sell it
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Thank you for sharing songs, I like to read your thoughts on each songs.
" レゴリスの墓標 1 - 2022 " : great atmosphere, intro is great and the little short solo at 2:14 is brilliant. But the chorus is very very common, I heard this many times.
" 落園 3 - 2015 " : They don’t do ’ bad ’ songs, it’s well play and produced. But this one is typical, the chorus sounds like most of what they do. With the typical JRock rythm.
" 愛憎ロンド 3 - 2014 " : Never heard this one thank you. It makes me think of ’ masquerade '. Very cool, the piano adds some interesting parts. I like the guitar solo and bass tapping. Yomi is doing his usual mecanical, lifeless thing during the chorus.
’ 雪葬/まほら 3 - 2006 ’ : I feel it, there is something honest. Yomi seems a bit more into the songs. The simplicity of the arrangements are nice. It makes me think of ’ Konoha ’ in a positive way.
’ メアリー 1 - 2005 ’ : the mix is very raw it’s nice, lot of clarity. The bass stand out well. Nostalgic vibe at 2:57 I love this. Which album is it ?
’ アクアリア 2 - 2003 ’ : i don’t think music should be over analyzed in a scientific way, so ’ vibes ’ is totally fine. In this album, I much prefer ’ Akane ', this song is so elegant and catchy.
ビルドゥングス・ロマン 2 - 2002 : Yomi sounds a bit off. Very typical song, nothing really special i can remember after listening.
’ クラッシュ!?ナイトメアチャンネル 2 - 2002 ’ : Yes It’s different, ’ unconvential ’ as you said. But variety, should not rim with mediocrity.
I listened to ’ to be or not to be '(makes me think of ‘scums’ a bit). There are no songs that really stand out, nothing that makes me want to go back to it. But yes I agree, there are some very good ideas instrumental wise.
I start to understand what make me feel the redundant, especially when choruses coming on many songs. It’s mostly Yomi’s voice and his way of singing. He seems to sing very precisely with a good technic, but I don’t feel the emotion. It feels like he sings a bit mecanically, which put me out of most songs. He should try to put his guts in the songs. Despite this, the musicians are good, especially Sakito.
I admit that I often have this problem, for example with A9 last album, I’m interested about the instrumentals they created, but the vocals parts I just cannot (except Saga which is a surprisingly talented vocalist).
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it’s… like… super forgettable, but there’s some long lost magic that high-end VK bands used to have around 2003//2005 coming back in the PV, which I adooooooooooore omggg
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You should watch their concerts. He puts a lot of emotion into those. His voice change has made him become more unstable in performances lately but i think the enthusiasm makes up for it. When it comes to Nightmare I pretty much only listen to their live performances as the studio releases seem too boring to me. They’re genuienly my favorite performers though
The guitar riff reminds me of the riff from Believe. Which was their first major hit I believe
The curse of being an artist that stays around for more than 10 years really. Suddenly everything old is good and everything new is boring
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Ngl, this sounds somewhat better than the last tracks but it’s high time they either start doing something else to try to accommodate Yomi’s new timbre or just leave it be. 20 years in this scene is legendary status, they have nothing to prove anymore. Listening to any live footage of the band nowadays is quite literally painful
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Yeah they have nothing to prove anymore. Literally.
Their old stuff when they were creative and had passion is so much better than their recent soulless releases. But I guess it has just become work for them, like people work in offices to earn their paycheck. Many of the “old” jrock bands are like this today. All the passion is gone but they still have fans and need their paycheck. (Is Yomi that bad live?)
Would have been sweet to disband a band with a song called “farewell” 
I don’t know, Yomi has been getting better and this upcoming tour is the longest they had since they came back, so maybe they feel more confindent in how he does now or they found a better seutup that works for them (hopefully both!)
They also said they are moving into a new phase with this release but I suspect it’s more related to the way they tour than a change in musical direction (although artistically they are leaning much more into the 2000s style as Nekkichi was saying). Let’s see how everything turns out. I expect them to announce a new album by mid may and release it just in time for a substantial summer tour.
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Actually Yomi sounds better than when they went on hiatus but he makes some mistakes (he sounds out of tune) but I think his live performances are still decent. I’m really worried about this long tour, I hope it doesn’t affect his throat🙁
someone referenced an interview with Adele on another board, long touring really fucks it up for every artist (women have it worse because their singing voice changes with age.)
they all have to seek professional help at some point, regardless how good their vocal training is, and from there it’s just a matter of learning to sing in what their voice turns into after the recovery, and the cycle repeats.
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That’s the problem with this band, they toured 9 months a year for 10 years. Yomi’s throat suffering was bound to happen at some point.
That being said, despite this tour being longer is not even close of what they did before the hiatus. It’s the longest since they came back but not as insane as back then
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Yomi struggles a fair bit with older songs. A lot of them are pretty high for his register now. So some songs he just cannot sing well anymore such as Raven Loudspeaker. With new songs he does fine. With songs that aren’t as high he does pretty good too he performed Mind Ocean well recently as well as Cynical Re:Actor.
He’s not “bad” live. Nowhere near as good as before his voice condition but definitely still sounds better live than studio for new songs. Re:Do, Rad Dream, Schroedinger Knife, Chronophobia all sound great when performed.