Review: lynch. - A GLEAM IN EYE

As much as people bash bands for trying new sounds, it is an utterly amazing thing that no one crucifies lynch. for sticking to the same formula they've been pumping out since A Grateful Shit. And this single proves that while the boys can still bring it in the rocking out department, the formula has gotten stale.

All they accomplished here is sounding fresh without doing anything new at all. And by doing something "new" I mean not recycling the same three or four riffs that I've heard elsewhere in their discography. Enter one part THE AVOIDED SUN and another part A GRATEFUL SHIT and shove it in a blender of better production and stronger vocals and you'd get A GLEAM IN EYE. Understanding lynch.'s formula and expecting a certain breed of song is one thing but this song isn't much different from the rest of their discography. I'm comfortable with bands that follow in the veins of DEATHGAZE, who have a core sound and don't deviate much from it but this is just way TOO similar to everything they've done before - and by everything I honestly do mean everything. Let's flashback to pre-SHADOW's era and this is nothing more than a rehash of ADORE with the prominent chorus, the stop at the solo portion before launching into the final chorus and then the recycling of the beginning to end out the song with Hazuki layered over it in the singing then screaming pattern. Is A GLEAM IN EYE good? Yes, but at the end of the day it's just another lynch. song.

To strengthen the ADORE connection even further, the first seconds of All this I'll give you are eerily reminiscent of an illusion. Thank god it ends up launching into some crunchy guitars but then flashbacks of I'm sick b'coz of you + enemy start reverbrating throughout the song, especially during the little guitar part at 1:30 (because that's literally a riff they recycle at least once an album). Oh, I also must mention that this song gets put above it's A-side purely because of Hazuki. Yes, that man does some beautiful things with his vocals in this track. It has slightly less traces of their "stock" sound than normal which means that this song took about as much risk as DEATHGAZE doing a ballad. Honestly this should be the single because when their fifth album ends up coming out this would be a lot less faceless than A GLEAM IN EYE. Don't get me wrong I like both tracks here but I don't think ADORE version two needs to be pushed (read: shoved) down our throats again and again and again.

And that's pretty much it. Once again, lynch have done more of the same. It's nice that there's a band or two that you can go to and know that when they release a single it's not going to suck with experimentation and "selling out" but where does one draw the line with not deviating from their sound and then not being able to sport a few new riffs? All this I'll give you highlights my problem in particular - it feels like an amalgamation of songs they've done before rather than a whole new song done in the same lynch.'y vein that I like. People hated SHADOWS because it didn't have enough ADORE-esque tracks but I loved it just because the presence of tracks like MAZE (I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM sucked though) and CULTIC MY EXECUTION showed signs of experimentation while still sounding like lynch. but they played it safe with this one.

And perhaps they should have. 8/10 with a huge preference for the B-side on this release. lynch., do the right thing and put All this I'll give you on the next album.

Review: UnsraW - GUILTY

Everyone who found this disappointing must have pregamed on Abel/Kein/Reborn. The GUILTY EP is not disappointing at all. The new Tetsu/Madoka team works better than the Tetsu/Rai team ever did, and Jin has some fucking beautiful bass lines. Yuuki's growls aren't all that bad either - I'm glad he chose not to layer them in intense amounts of distortion like a ton of other vocalists do. It's the one thing that turned me off of Screw's X-RAYS album a while back.

The opening of ZERO reminded me a bit of Dimmu Borgir's Unorthodox Manifesto, except this isn't as cool. It's just another one of those SE's that really -don't- deserve to exist. Compared to their past SE's though, this is rather cool. The Introduction on Calling was worse than this by miles and end of finale was much, [b]much[/b] more repetitive. Still, ZERO could have been omitted - hidden in the pre-gap and I wouldn't have cared much.

SALIVA OF GOD's introduction is severely disjointed. I like it. As for the rest of the song, I'm not as sold. Random double bass where none was needed mars the heaviness factor and for a song that's heavy it's straightforward and not as varied as it needs to be. Here, Jin asserts his position as a bassist more than Jun ever did and doesn't disappear under the crunchy, downtuned guitars. Perhaps Yuuki's tweaking of the guitar tuning helps this...who knows? Chorus was lame and the change in pace stereotypical, by-the-book VK but harmonized finger tapping saves it the first time around. The second time...just no. It's decent overall.

There's a really prominent, slightly annoying guitar part in ROSE OF SORROW that drags it down a lot, but Yuuki's rapping might turn off some even more. I don't find Yuuki's rapping to be that bad even though I find Japanese rap atrocious but I have more beef because it doesn't fit the tone of the song in the slightest. Whilst this one trips on the verse, it saves itself with that nice chorus. On the same level as SALIVA OF GOD, except I like it a bit less.

Still should have been a ballad though.

I normally can't sit through most of UnsraW's ballads so mentioning that I got to the end of GUILTY - twice - means I like it. I wouldn't exactly equate the end of this song to Jin's magnificent 9/11 divebomb at the end of [i]guilt trip[/i] but it could have been a LOT better. Yuuki's tonal gaps just isn't strong enough to hit those high notes although the lack of him coming back and screaming his guilt out was very much welcomed. The clean guitar is a real nice change of pace from the last two tracks and the solo bit where they harmonize was excellent. Liking this a lot.

WITHERING BLOOD sounds like an Abel/Kein leftover. This is good. It's not overly heavy just to be heavy and the guitars move through a lot of phases instead of alternating through three or so portions (I'm staring at YOU SALIVA OF GOD AND ROSE OF SORROW). The chorus isn't lame either and the transitions are seamless. Oh, and Yuuki doesn't do any bastardization with his vocals so it's all good. Like, love, would make triplets with.

They spiced DAMNED up with some synths and other instruments but it's just one of those piano outro's that have become so stale and overdone. I'm not even going to mention that if you take this and ZERO away you're basically left with a maxi, which makes me question the inclusion of ZERO that much more. It's pretty, carries that "unfinished" vibe and fits in with the tone well but that's it. I'm glad this isn't a heavy song though - this mini didn't need any more.

I liked this quite a bit more than I expected. It's not what we're "used to" but given time a lot of people will come to appreciate this. UnsraW "branched out" with their sounds and the incorporation of instruments that they've tried in the past here and there with mixed results works a lot better now. Instead of throwing in one or two tracks that don't work out too well with some old stale same old rockers and calling this a record they made this whole EP's vibe similar, yet something completely different than any of their past work. For that I have to give it to them.

Review: Lycaon - Royal Order

After the announcement of them postponing their album for two months I want a damn good explanation as to why they postponed this album in the first place. Royal Order might as well be considered a compilation album because there's barely any new material on this release. Yeah sure, the limited edition gets Plug > into the > Socket (It's SOCKET, not Soket. So WHAT if they accidentally published it as SOKET on their live demotape? How many of you MP3 ripping, downloading whores actually HAVE the demotape in your possession? I would say very few of you do. Secondly, you're recognizing that it's an accident, a typo. THEY'RE JAPANESE. They didn't type it because it alluded to some deeper meaning that by omitting the "c" made an ethereal connection to their lyrics. They don't speak, read or write English very well, fucked up and by the time they realized the mistake it was too late/too expensive to pay to have it fixed so they decided to leave it be figuring that their fans would be bright enough to figure it out on their own! For Jesus' sake, it's printed PlugintotheSOCKET on the PV! IT'S THE SAME EXACT SONG JUST WITH A C in the word SOCKET! If you're still shitting me they announced that it was called PLUG > INTO THE > SOCKET when they first announced Royal Order's 500 singles. I swear, only J-Turd fans can be this retarded. It almost makes me want to poke my eyes with a spork like the time I discovered that people were arguing over what to call ALSDEAD's Violent of Reason single. Because, you know even though it's printed Violent of Reason on their OHP you have to scrobble it as Violet of Reason because they forgot the N on their album covers, or even VOR because you know Violent of Reason was just too fucking big to print in the booklet and acronyms take precedence over whole titles when the band themselves fucking refer to it as VIOLENT OF REASON. I don't see D'espairsRay manias referring to Murder Freaks as "muder freaks" even though it's misspelled as that on the back of the Terrors EP. They refer to it as MURDER FREAKS because they have functional brain cells that tell them "oh, they meant this". Thank you D'espa fans for having sanity) and the three 500 press Like an Edison singles are included and re-mastered and there are three more tracks on the regular edition but it doesn't justify having roughly half of your album previously released in any way.

Speaking of Plug > into the > Socket, it's awesome but the music video is shit. For crying out loud Yuuki at least SING when you're singing in the music video. Go fire your PV editors and hire me - I could have done a better job. Go YouTube it because it's not on the album at all even though it should be.

Back to Lycaon's compilation album, the tracklist itself induces vomiting. Cordyceps Sinensis, Declaration of War and A Box in Beautiful should be on the album, but not one after the other. It unbalances the album because the singles aren't spread out enough. Chains of Collar is iffy but it could be included on the album. It's not their absolute best song but it is one of their most identifiable ones and that's probably due to the live-distributed version of this single that's turned every fan's head and still has many waiting on the hope that Enslavement Beauty (once again, Beauty not Beuty. They misspelled this one too. If you're going to pronounce it beauty, and define it as the word beauty, you might as well fucking SPELL IT BEAUTY. See "muder freaks" argument) will eventually surface on the Internet for all to download and sex like there's no tomorrow. Kesshou Hana is also dated but that was included out of necessity. As this review goes on, you will realize that Royal Order follows a sickening pattern of cheaply made, two minute thrash numbers punctuated by real musicwriting and salvageable pieces of work that almost make this album worth all the money they poured into it. Kesshou Hana is what saves Royal Order from becoming another VERSUS and it's presence alone changes the tone of the album (and I will argue that it saves it at the same time). However, there is no reason that Red Rum and Hisame need to be on this album. They're very dated sonic soundscapes of generic in a record that I can analogously describe as a pubescent teenager whose balls are about to drop and the re-recordings just aren't as good as the rest of the track here. I even believe that the re-recording of Red Rum, whilst pimped out with better production is inferior to the original. If they absolutely MUST have included older tracks to fill out the empty spaces in the album both Kohakuiro and The[1st] degree genocide holic would have fit in much, much better. However, I believe that there is no reason why a band must absolutely include their oldest singles on their first album. I hate to use Dir en grey as an example but both Jealous and -I'll- never made it onto another album (although I can see an argument stating that they had five other singles released and that including those two would have made a Royal Order-esque fest a decade earlier but I just prefer to state that they suck) and Gauze is just fine without it.

However, I would have preferred more new tracks. Howling and Flowing are both horrible wastes of space on Royal Order. I believe they included these two because if they told you that they only had 10 tracks and 6 were older songs Lycaon fans would pop a hemorrhoid. The album should have jumped straight into Lily, which is a different type of Lycaon that I'm receptive to. Excellent music writing and experimentation with some new sounds combined with a catchy, almost Gazette-ish chorus makes for one of the better new tracks. Lily makes way for Royal Order which comes busting forward with Yuuki's burpy growls and crunching guitar riffs that made me wonder what the hell happened to Ambrozia era Lycaon. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an instance of a very badly placed track. Off-kilter entrance pushed to the side, it does that hard verse-poppy chorus arrangement that I'm not too fond of but they do it with enough attitude to convince the casual listener that yes, this isn't something you've heard once or thrice before. This album does worse so I'll let Royal Order slide.

Declaration of War is a tough nut to crack. Look at the title - DECLARATION OF WAR. You would expect some screaming, hard, rough, insane track to be shoved up your vas deferens and into your testes. It influences you to think you're going to get something you aren't and then when you hear this track you'll be mildly disappointed. Excusing the name, Declaration of War is not that bad of a track. I can describe this as a softer touch to hard rock. Sure, it has it's handful of screams and rough passages but the rest of the track is a bit more melodic than we're used to Lycaon composing. This isn't a bad thing by any means but this lacks balls, especially when compared to the rest of the album. If you come into this track looking for something to headbang to skip for now. If you're here to just listen to some pleasant music this is an excellent track. It just...doesn't belong after Royal Order. This following Lily would have been a much better move.

On to something a little more respectable, Cordyceps sinensis is a very hard, catchy song with lots of high pitched grunting mixed with a very addictive opening and reverb yelling. I actually like the pre-chorus for the alternating guitars although the regular chorus isn't that bad at all. The name has absolutely nothing to do with anything, as I've read the English lyrics and nothing about "Chinese mold" comes to mind at all. Whatever you crazy cross-dressing rockers, you just do whatever makes your music that much less generic.

A Box in Beautiful is around where this album peaks in quality. I personally think it's the best song on this album and has more of that Lycaon sound than most of the other tracks on here. Unusual guitar tunings and a steady source of rhythm is all over this song. Yuuki screeches and yells with the best of them but his singing is what really gets to me. It's so beautiful, mesmerizing, expressive...and screechy. He brings the track down in some parts because his vocal range just doesn't stretch that far but I can look past that part because he doesn't massacre the vocal department the way other shit bands do.

Plus, ever since my friend mocked Yuuki with CRYING IN THE LAAAAAND, I don't take this song seriously anymore. I hope I haven't ruined it for you as much as the revelation that Dir en grey's egniryS cimredopyH +) an Injection is a song about cocaine and masturbation ruined my friend's entire perception of Macabre. The song is great, but if Yuuki's voice was just a bit stronger this song would have been brilliant.

Depending on what edition you have you either have Chains of collar or two wastes of space before Chains of Collar. Miss.EVIL INSIDE is Lycaon's attempt at being hard and they get points for doing it well and a nice nod of the head for incorporating unexpected double bass rolls into their screaming chorus but this is an earache and a ball of repetitiveness. I don't like mindless screaming from a band that dresses like they walked into the female section of Macy's and cut up clothing to don to call themselves shock rockers. This track asserts my belief that Lycaon is attempting to figure out what they want to do and it alternates (literally) between harsh, thrashy screaming numbers and more melodic numbers. Pick a fucking style, damnit.

**88** is another short, thrashy number that they included a bit later on but I'll cover it shortly now because I just have to say I like it even less than Miss.EVIL INSIDE. It really took you guys two extra months to write 6 minutes of material? Are you fucking me with a purple dildo? **88** has a pretty rough intro and plenty of screams thrown around but the chorus appears like a foot gunning for my crotch. By the time I know it's here the waves of nausea are already making their way up my nervous system. **88** isn't all that good and that scream at the end made me go deaf...when I had it playing on speakers. Ouch. Move on.

chains of collar isn't much different than what we've been presented with, and with this atrocious pattern going on you could even tell what type of song it was going to be. There are no sudden transitions in this song that causes vaginal cancer to suddenly spew out my orifices and consume my body and there's definitely some vocal work redone here because Yuuki doesn't sound as sketchy as it did back when it was released as a single. It's a great song but really, the chain of singles need to end. Now.

who's bad psycho party is actually a lot better than it's title lets on. I read someone somewhere describe this a dancey number. No. It is not. When someone says dance, I think of MUCC's Fuzz, or D'espairsRay's LOVE IS DEAD, or the GazettE's SILLY GOD DISCO. No, it just has a four to the floor disco beat going on at some points during the song in addition with some electronic effects. This and pAIN kILLER are the best out of the newer tracks that they presented to us - it's just a shame that the former isn't included on the limited edition. In an effort to condense the rest of this review I'm recommending these along with just about everything else on this album. Just keep your ears open for these two.

Hisame is a faceless tune that I couldn't recall if you cuntpunted me and commanded me to. I've tried sitting through it and when I'm paying attention it drags so much I feel the need to skip it and move on to Kesshou Hana, which is a very beautiful song and that's quite possibly because it's the only track here that breaks the mold. Yuuki’s falsetto is used a lot here and that risk pays off. It also comes with a piano introductions whose inclusion isn’t solitary and doesn’t pause to get into the track. It also is packaged with a twin guitar solo which takes the song off of the “ballad” path long enough for the listener to take a breather and listen through the rest. This really isn't everyone's cup of tea and if I tell you it came from Ambrozia some people just might skip it but at least it's something different (I was going to say new but I just said it came from Ambrozia).

R[UIN]ED RUM isn't an ending track, didn't need to be re-recorded, remastered or included on Royal Order. This should have been left on the single it came from. Yuuki's opening scream is gone and the song just lacks the indies charm that made it bearable back when they first descended upon us. Instead of being bastard children of Versailles and Kisaki, they should have included Plug > into the > Socket SOMEWHERE on this album. This spot would have been fine seeing as how no other tracks (except maybe Kesshou Hana) would have ended the album much better. RED RUM relies too much on nostalgia to get on by and if you aren't a longtime Lycaon fan you really aren't going to care all that much. These last four songs are all songs that not everyone is going to like and it's really stupid to put them all back-to-back to end your album. It's supposed to end on a good note, not a bad one.

So Royal Order is a mixed bag. I enjoy this album a lot more because I enjoy Lycaon's discography and all the songs I like are mostly songs I've heard before. Royal Order definitely has a few surprises here and there but it's got a few duds as well (well actually, more than a few if you count the instrumentals as music). I recommend it, but only if you've been exposed to some form of their style before.