[Review]ONE OK ROCK - Niche Syndrome

^dat box art ;)

Right, Niche Syndrome. Fourth(?) studio album by the j-rock band ONE OK ROCK. 2010 needed this release. Best album I've heard in ages. On with the review...

Track One, Introduction. Which, uh, is an introduction track full of ambient noise. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but all the best albums have an intro track, so we'll let it live.

Track Two - Never let this go
"WE HAVE TO CARRY ON" shouts the happy little frontman Taka. Superb little riffs going on in the background, great intro. Fairly good English pronounciation throughout the verse, and on the whole a catchy indie rock feel driving this song through its 4:17 duration. Wonderful stuff.

Track three, kanzen kankaku dreamer. This was the single that got me into ONE OK ROCK and it still sounds as fantastic as ever. And if you thought they couldnt get any better than this, just wait til you hear the rest of the songs that are ahead of you.

Track four, Konzatsu Communication. An emotional opening quickly falls away into another uniquely ONE OK ROCK style rock song. Very good.

5: Yes I am, the most emotional song thus far on the album. Slightly cheesy, but brilliant nonetheless. SAAAAAAAAY MMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY NAAAAAAAAME and so on.

Track Six, Shake it down. Not brilliant, but certainly decent. Sounds like most of the other songs on here, but whereas with Tool it makes the album awful, here, the formula OOR have makes me more than happy to listen to these songs.

Track Seven: Liar. Utterly fantastic. You *need* this song. Like, really need it. Chorus will make your life complete

Track Eight: Jibun Rock... its really good. Huge change of pace from Liar back into fast relentless rock with a great little bass noise at the start. Love it. This and Liar make the album for me.
(...this album....O_O )

Wherever you are is an easy listening love ballad-y type thing. Not a fantastic song but very inspiring, and its good to see OOR stepping out of their comfort zone.

Riot!! is needlessly noisy in the beginning, but it soon settles down and becomes almost Paramore in its musical ways. Group vocals and shouting are the order of things here.

Adult Suits and Mikansei Koukyoukyoku win so much, before settling down into the final track, Nobody's Home a beautiful end to a beautiful album with English lyrics that actually make sense and really good instrumentation all round. The chorus will ring in your ears long after you've pressed stop SPOILER: (which you shouldn't, because there is a bonus track...hence why this track is nine minutes long. Its rather cool)

The end. Good album. As I said at the start, 2010 needed this release, and well....thats all there is to it. Truly awesome, and shows a marked improvement from their older stuff.
A

[review]Dir en Grey - UROBOROS

Well, here we have it guys. Possibly the most disturbing, twisted and unsettling (and talented) band you will ever hear. And their best album.

^Unhappy box art. The album itself isn't any happier, either.

Ah, Dir en Grey. What a bunch of crazy Japanese artists. If you have any interest in the Japanese music scene (I'll forgive you if you don't, its not exactly a conventional interest) you will have heard of these guys and their brutal, shocking form of music, most likely through their song OBSCURE, which has a very messed up video indeed. Spoiler: babies get eaten.
If not, all you need to know is that it's a very awesome band, though extremely polarising - the marmite of the music world.

Well, enough banter. Track one, Sa Bir is a moody and eerie intro track, with a pulsating bass backing and Eastern riff going over the top. Kyo comes in with his frankly disturbing screams and yelps (I challenge you to find anyone with a better vocal range.), which cut through the already atmospheric backdrop.

Track two, Vinushka. At over nine minutes, it doesn't really belong at the start of the album, but gives the listener a good idea of what is to come. Kyo croons into the mic, before Die and Kaoru come in with a filthy distorted riff and Shinya drums like a beast. About four minutes in it all goes to hell, with an inhuman scream followed by pure death metal, and some very impressive vocals from Kyo. This pattern of soft, hard repeats for the remainder of Vinushka, making a song that is awesome all round.

Red Soil showcases Kyo's quite frankly appalling English, but superb musicianship from the other band members hold the song together until he lapses back into growling like an animal. Varied, twisted... incredible. But you ain't seen nothing yet. Kyo begins spazzing, throwing high pitched punchy vocals at you. Good, good song.

Doukoku to Sarinu. Sounds a little like Red Soil, but there's quite a bit of actual singing involved and far higher vocals, as well as the usual screams and growls. Amazing, as is the next track Toguro, with a catchy intro riff and some distinct warped vocals, climaxing in some very high singing indeed.

Glass Skin, is a touching and reflective piece, which was one of the many hit single's in Japan for Diru. Calming, and probably one of the best song's here. That is, if Dir En Grey had decided to put the Japanese version on here, not the English version, which although more meaningful to us English-speaking folk, hasn't got the feeling of the Japanese version. Oh well, its still awesome :D

Wasn't impressed with the song after, Stuck Man. Too repetitive, like that crappy Tool album I reviewed the other day. Still unique, still cool, but it kinda sticks out in this album of pure brilliance.

Reiketsu Nariseba. Dude, what can I say about this. Growl, growl, scream, growl. Weird little Carribean riff chugging its way through the verse, while Kyo delivers on all fronts by singing both high and low at the same time. No really, he can sing two notes at once. Anyway, utterly fantastic, goes into a creepy Eastern breakdown before hitting you with a savage drop and chorus. Awesome, and very weird.

Track nine, Ware yami to te ... is such a calming song, endlessly inventive, endlessly awesome. i suggest you give it a listen. Its not heavy, trust me :)

Bugaboo, despite the utterly ridiculous name, is probably one of the most brutal songs on here, combining squeals with growling in a slow, thudding song which drills its way into your brain, with a sudden change in pace for the break. Epic.

Gaika Chinmoku ga Nemuru Koro, a late winner on this album. "He's really not well in the head, is he?" said one of my friends upon hearing this song. "Bloody hell". Said another. Kinda like OBSCURE, but faster and more awesome. Bugaboo on drugs. Songs like this make me respect Diru even more. Wow.

As we near the end of the album, DOZING GREEN pops up with an epic riff, gentle singing mixing with, um, some not-so-gentle stuff, and an ear-destroyingly high outro. Again, better in Japanese, so go youtube hunting for it.

Final track, inconvenient ideal. Winner of the highest singing award by a man ever, the peaks in the chorus being almost painful to listen to. I have no idea where this slow and wonderful ballad came from, but its definitely one of my favourite tracks on the album.

So, what can I say? Dir En Grey have truly created a masterpiece with this album, correcting the flaws of Withering to Death and The Marrow of a Bone - such an improvement must be commended. This album can only get an A*

A*

[Review] Tool - Lateralus

Hey, look, I'm back. And *still* nobody's read my blog. Oh well.

This nasty little (I say that, its ridiculously bloated and overlong) specimen is called 'Lateralus' and is by a pretentious American pretender rock band called 'Tool'. Sputnikmusic have praised this album to the point of ass-kissing, so I thought I'd take a quick look at it to see if it lives up to its reputation as a formidable and inventive album.

(And I apologise for my dodgy humour in older reviews. No more of that. Also apologise for drubbing in the blink of an eye and MIRROR, whih I have now come to realise are amazing.)

Okay, track one. The Grudge. Derp. Moderately catchy riff that repeats for about an hour. Eventually he spits out a few words in a really annoying voice. Sure, atmospheric...loljk, it's terrible. Hey look, some distorted palm-muting stuff. He has a go at singing. Eugh. Louder bit. He pushes his voice to the height of its three note range. Shouting. Spittting. Gawd, its just like Nickelback. Punchy though, not too bad.

Okay, move on. Track two. Eon Blue Apocalypse and The Patient (yes, two tracks at once- how inventive....wait hang on, that's what we call an introduction). Sounds exactly the same as the last one. Those droning group vocals and 'tortured' singing that, uh, is awful. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.

Track four. I'm seeing a theme, in that none of these songs are any good whatsoever. Oh well, maybe the next bad comedy double act will help ease my pains. 'Mantra' and 'Schism'. I hear moaning. Like a whale taking a really satisfying shite. It stinks about as bad too. Anyhow, to be fair, Schism does have a really catchy bassline. Possibly the one track on the album I don't hate. Slightly unnerving and very atmospherey.

Track six/seven. Its fine, sounds like everything else on this album.

Track eight - the song with teh magic drums. Apparently, the song also killed the vocalists voice for three weeks. Very good, probably the hardcoriest song on the album. Some excellent screaming later on in the song. Impressive, but it comes across as too little variation too late.

TRACK NINE. Um, it's called lateralus. That's about it. There's some sort of mahussive riff going on. Feel like I've heard it before.

Track teneleventwelve. Disposition, Triad, Reflection. Though not in that order. First 'movement' is chillout music, though not necessarily any good. Second movement, reflection, is, surprisingly, a quiet song that ends heavy. Yawn, move on. Guys, its one thing to do essentially the same track several times, but several times on one album? That's a whole other level of musical blasphemy.
Oh well, at least triad has some bite. Some. It's an instrumental. Very listenable, but um, not really the imaginative and intense ride it should be.

Final track, supposedly written in the language of the angels 'Faaip de Oiad" isn't even a song. Is a recording. Of a prank call. Great. Laaaame.

Right, so, overall, what do I think? I think, it has a good foundation for one epic song, but trying to stretch this foundation over an entire album makes the album very repetitive. And boriiiiing. >.>

C+