the GazettE

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I feel like a person’s gotta look at Dogma different than their other albums to appreciate it! I mean it’s never taking the place of Nil, Stacked Rubbish, Dim etc for me, but i think it does well when you look at it for what it is rather than bringing in the expectations of those.

From Nil → Beautiful Deformity i think the GazettE wrote with similar storytelling, if not similar sounds. I think one of vkei’s main strengths is how much variance in instrumentation, feel, and style you can get across one album. Not saying it’s unheard of outside vkei, but it’s something i expect from vkei more commonly than from elsewhere!

And then Dogma comes out with its one single focused sound and thin spread - the ballads and heaviest songs really aren’t at all far apart. There’s so much more cohesion of instrumentation, even guitar tones from track to track. Just condensed in every way.

But - the album knows this, and the songwriting does as well. The differentiation and storytelling take on a subtler role. And i don’t mean the lyrics when i say storytelling lol i mean something like the feeling of being brought thru the songs.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound too vague and loose lol but i think usually The GazettE writes albums that walk you along, very compellingly, taking you to interesting places. In a sense you can kinda “turn your mind off” and you’ll be brought to a lot.

But for Dogma, instead the album doesn’t really take you anywhere unless you try to be walking with it. So as a result, it’s got this weirdly split preference for me where i like it best played loud on long car drives with zero else to focus on, or played quiet as an audio bed while hanging out with friends. Their other albums aren’t bifurcated like that for me, filling every high to medium interest role from long drive sole focus to emotional regulation to bgm as i work on projects. And it’s those medium focus zones where i feel like Dogma has less to offer.

Anyway, if you noticed i’ve gone out of my way to not mention Disorder yet, it’s because that’s actually the only album of theirs i feel similarly about. It’s a lot more locked in on a thinner sound palette than the rest of their discog and doesn’t have the exploratory variance of later albums. So it’s got that high and low split listening preference for me too.

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559

Their older albuns hit you like a shotgun
Dogma is a focused laser beam

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560

I dunno. I think there are plenty of albums within vkei that stick to a limited soundscape but manage to be great because the songwriting is just good and varied. A handful that come to mind are:

lynch - greedy dead souls

deadman - in the direction of sunrise and night light

Mucc - Zekuu

*Obviously, preference plays in hard here.

I think I understand what you’re saying about Dogma vs their older albums. It’s that their previous albums have a spectrum of experiences that aren’t necessarily connected, whereas Dogma is a single line of experience taking you up and down.

I’m fine with that, but I think an album still needs to make that line interesting and lean. That’s not to say that Dogma doesn’t have excellent moments. But I’d compare it to going to a buffet. At first it’s great. But the more time you spend there, you start getting less interested in what’s being offered.

It’s also that Dogma uses a lot riffs that are derivative of one another. The guitar lines flow well from one to the next, but you’ve already heard something similar two songs back. If it’s not a riff, it’s the choice of notes/chords that are similar. While it’s only 50 minutes in total, the reason it feels so much longer to me is that there’s weak variety.

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561

I agree about Dogma. I wouldn’t say I have more favorite tracks on NINTH or MASS, but I enjoy listening to them as full albums much more. When it comes to Dogma I’d remove a few tracks.

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I hated DOGMA for years, until one day, something snapped and I really tuned in and I was blown away. Previously, I just could never get into it. Everything sounded the same and it all had the same pressure. I didn’t get it, and thought it was boring.

That’s why the ‘laser-focused’ comment resonates. I feel like DOGMA is some of their best work, because they perfected the entire feeling of heaviness and oppression from beginning to end. There are moments where it feels like the heaviness lifts and you can see the sun again, but it just drags you back in. As the youngun’s say: It just hits different.

It feels kind of like 12012’s Play Dolls album. Everything has the same tone, the same atmosphere, little differentiation… until you really, truly listen to it. Then the little nuances begin to show themselves, and they’re so special. That album remains one of my absolute favorites to this day, 20 years on.

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Since we’re talking about DOGMA:

For me, Beautiful Deformity was such a disappointing piece of work, I still believe it’s their worst album to date. DOGMA was such a breath of fresh air, it had a solid concept, it was Gazette doing what they hadn’t done since DIM. They had a clear sense of direction, the band were delving further into metal as a genre, Ruki had evidently been working hard on improving his vocals (especially his harsh vocals, compare BD and DOGMA it’s night and day!). I remember the album first dropping and being glued to it for months! DOGMA is in my top 3 Gazette albums!

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564

Dude i so badly wish i could write like GDS or The buried. Those albums are dark but not depressing and they’re groovy and heavy af. A grateful shit is one of my favorites as well as stuck pain when it comes to their singles and bsides too. They’re just difficult enough to not learn easily on guitar but simple enough to not be over the top where you just lose any sort of focus on the songs. Personally, early lynch will never be topped by anything else they do.

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565

For me Dogma and ninth are some of those albums where they’re great as single songs and a full playthrough. Both have songs i’d replace with their single bsides though even though they’re in my top 10 albums of all time. Grudge should’ve been replaced with malum or one of the others, and for ninth sono koe shouldve been swapped with something that fit the album sound better because thats the one song imo that is like a hard stop from the heaviness of the first part and the heavy but also gazerock second half. It just didn’t mesh well.

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566

100% Malum should’ve been on the album. Goddess from UGLY could’ve been on it, too.

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567

DOGMA was GazettE’s most concerted effort at a concept album and for that I think I will always love it! I started with them in 2006 some time and it’ll probably never be my favorite album, but I still see it as a unique high point for them.

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568

As much as I love Dim, I wouldn’t say it had a solid concept or sense of direction. The mood between songs shifted almost violently sometimes, and I think they tried to remedy that by throwing in the interlude tracks. Especially in the back half of the album.

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569

Beautiful Deformity was when i started to see the light again with the GazettE. Toxic and DIVISION have aged decently, especially live but in real time, that era was rough. To me, the 1 album per year method worked against them creatively. Beautiful Deformity had enough tracks where I saw individuality/creativity in the song writing again.

Devouring one another, and the last 4-5 songs easily wipe out anything from TOXIC/Division. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were a precursor to DOGMA.

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570

I have the double disc version of Division. I made a playlist that mimics the single disc version and it didn’t quite work for me. I think dividing the songs up made more sense. I especially hate where they placed Yoin. What a way to ruin the mood and atmosphere for such a beautiful song.

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571

I’m convinced the label gave the band some kind of mandate regarding the electronic direction. They tried writing those tracks first, ran out of time and then wrote the “non-electronic” side to fill the album. Then afterwards came up with the Division concept as a marketing point. I think that’s why, to me, the non-electronic side sounds so much more underbaked and why the album just falls apart as a whole.

But it has “dripping insanity” (aka bathroom pt II) and “yoin” which are like the two best tracks they’ve written post dim. It also has “attitude” which is the absolute worst song the band has ever put out.

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572

… i kinda like attitude

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573

I love the song.

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i mixed the concepts of both tracklists together to make this one; it’s how the album is on my iPod. This sounds dumb but if you’re on the fence about this album please give it a try in this order; imho it fixes literally every problem and makes this the strongest album since Dim

  1. [XI]
  2. Gabriel on the Gallows
  3. Derangement
  4. Attitude
  5. Required Malfunction
  6. Depth
  7. Dripping Insanity
  8. Hedoro
  9. Diplosomia
  10. Yoin
  11. Ibitsu
  12. Kagefumi
  13. Kago no Sanagi
  14. Melt
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575

The only GazettE album I can’t do is TOXIC, and Beautiful Deformity is pretty meh.

But DIVISION is so damn good, minus a few songs.

Kagefumi and Kago no Sanagi just hit me in the feels every time.

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576

I liked Division when it came out, but Derangement is the only song I still want to go back to sometimes. By the way I’ve always hated Yoin, to me it sounds too forced and fake.

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577

I hate to say it but I agree with this take.

I can’t help but feel under a different circumstance this would be a more fleshed out and thorough song.