Review: VanessA - CHI【MA】IRA

Dear readers of my blog, I must confess: I have sinned greatly.

Rather, as I do my weekly scroll through my old reviews to come across comments that I could read, I realized that in the span of just six months my musical taste had gotten incredibly expansive. Taking a glance over several old reviews, I realized that my opinion wasn’t necessarily the same anymore and that a re-write of some of the older reviews was definitely in order to accurately display what my new viewpoint was.

Coming from someone that hated VanessA in June, listening to this single almost every day for a month straight shows you how much this band has changed in my ears. As I type this I tell you right now, I have no idea what it is I heard when I first popped CHI【MA】IRA back in my ears in June, but it definitely wasn’t this.

01. 散歌 -RETROSPECTION-
02. Arlequin
03. 【MA】RIA

Even six months later I don’t actually know what 散歌 is supposed to mean. The transliteration to “chika” remains. However, my original opinion on this song is definitely different. Its miles above alive=terror, which I have to say was admittedly average and really just not my cup of tea. 散歌-RETROSPECTION- is, however. As of this moment, being the last of the truly angry, crazy VanessA the fans love, 散歌-RETROSPECTION- does not let down. Genki’s death vocals are savage and his eagle scream contrast nicely, although all traces of heaviness disappear by chorus time (which I still have to say DOESN’T FIT. REALLY MEN, C’MON.IT’S NICE AND ALL BUT MOAR HEAVY, ANGRY SHIT). This will please the newer fans of VanessA who probably aren’t expecting something of this magnitude out of this band after world. is. my. mind. The solo with the high pitched squealing is not good for my ears (or anyone’s for that matter) and I sort of wanted some more of Genki’s growling after the first verse. Does it push the envelope of different and unique? No, not really but for a brutal death metal song with a lighter chorus and a deafening solo you can’t really do better than this one. It’s at the top of VanessA’s list of “songs you should listen to”.

I don't care what anyone says; I've heard Arlequin somewhere before. Genki's singing is annoying in the first verse (but catchy) and the growls in the second verse aren’t as savage as RETROSPECTION, but at least it isn’t as badly processed as B.M.METAMORPHOSE –murder side- (which really does have some bad sections with the vocals). The chorus uses Genki singing overlaying Genki shouting and that's perhaps the best part of the song tied with the jump into the breakdown/superfluous riffage. I'm also unsure if they threw female vocals in there somewhere, and I think I hear them so I'll call it fair play and say it makes this track better. Arlequin is the catchiest song on this album and probably is many a listener’s anthem. It sure as hell is mine and probably is the only thing that kept me from throwing this single away the first time around.

But like I said it’s not original. I’ve heard this somewhere before and Haruki definitely took some “inspiration” if you get my drift.

ARLEQUIN moves smoothly into 【MA】RIA. My original rip wasn’t EAC so my comment about the clunky transition can be blamed on silence that didn’t belong at the beginning of this track. I consider 【MA】RIA to be a bonus track due to its short length, because if I considered this a real song I’d be disappointed in how a kick-ass monster like this can’t top two and a half minutes. In case you’re wondering, it’s not an UnsraW/Core the Child cover. It’s its own song that shares the same title. Don’t you see the brackets? It’s definitely different.

Back to the song, if you need a quick fix of VanessA this could do the trick. However, it works much, much better when paired with the previous track since the roar out the gate hooks me in every time. It’s of a more violent breed than its A-side brother and if you really look at it it’s a condensed RETROSPECTION without the oddly fitting chorus. I don’t quite get the coughing at the end of the track but I bet if I had the lyrics (or a scan of the book) I could make sense of it.

So, far and away CHI【MA】IRA is the best single VanessA’s ever put out. I can’t find a good quality rip of P.S.D./Feel U (those rips floating around the alphabet blogs sound worse than YouTube rips) and at this moment I haven’t heard primitive. my. mind. so I can’t pass judgment on if that single brings back the schizo.

Anyone looking for a new breed of heavy, crazy, brutal shit needs to take a look at this single since it doesn’t get any better than this.

Nao’s departure is definitely the worst thing that’s happened to the band thus far.

Review: ALSDEAD - Distrust

My ALSDEAD, what has happened to you? D:

During that fateful day when I was pissed off and wanted to find some lame to tear into, I encountered ALSDEAD. Everyone was fangasming over Violent of Reason and soon after that I found myself quite enjoying the single on the principle that it:

"... doesn't sample aged semen from the festering penis of the generic VK cooler with this release and attempts to create some original music."

Sure, they sold out a little with the inclusion of a track like Kizu on the Violent of Reason single (and it’s Violent of Reason, not VOR fuckers) but I couldn’t complain about it too much because, well, Kizu was well done.

Why do I mention Violent of Reason before I mention Distrust? Well, ALSDEAD ended up taking Kizu and making an acoustic rendition of it (which worked about as well as an acoustic cover of Vredesbyrd) which should tell you that this single is going nowhere pretty much fast.

01. Distrust

02. Vanity

03. Kizu (Acoustic Rearrange)

I fucking despise the title track – it sounds nothing even remotely considering ALSDEAD and to make matters worse it’s not even good. The minute Maki starts a cappella with his Engrish should start sounding the “OH NOES” alarms in the back of your head. If that doesn’t, the electronic effects combined with the annoying chorus and the apparent lack of emotion will. Also, why the hell do I hear the “la-la-la’s” more in the background than I hear Maki? Someone definitely messed with the microphone values.

Everything about Distrust just screams “average” – the typical acoustic backed chorus, washed out screams, annoying chorus, synth effects to cover up where ALSDEAD knew they ran empty. This song started off on shaky ground in the composition stage and went nowhere. Even Maki sang like he didn’t care and it even sounds uncomfortable, as if he’s holding back. I don’t give a damn about how good the “mastering” sounds – the song has nothing on the PARADOX single, which couldn’t touch what were their first two singles.

So what did this song need? A better chorus, a damn good solo and some more screaming in their native language because the abuse of Engrish makes the track sound like an anime tie-in (and that, my students, is NEVER good).

So now we have Vanity, which starts out typical ALSDEAD with its downplayed introduction into a burst of energy. Standard, but it works and the guitar lines are definitely more assertive than that tip-toe around the morgue that was Distrust (like really, the guitar lines are SO much more pronounced in this one). I’d rate Vanity higher than Distrust based on the fact that the boys feel much more alive in this track even if it is the same song they’ve crapped out time and time again (this really just sounds like A_DUST x CYNICAL). I think they pushed Distrust a little too much because everyone knows English is COOL-DEHSU in Japan like Japanese is KAWAII-DESU amongst the lame otakus here (not the cool ones, the ones that make you look bad and make you want to commit genocide and mass murder – kudos to whoever gets that reference) and that every band needs some “diversity”. I hate to say it but over the course of the last four singles I’ve noticed the only noticeable risk they’ve taken is with F-99, Distrust and A_DUST. Whilst A_DUST’s experimentation is thoroughly evident up and down the first two songs of this single, F-99 is something they have yet to top and Distrust was a definite miss although I do appreciate the good things they tried to include in that track.

Like I said before, what I don’t like about Vanity (because if I didn’t cut back now I never would come back) is the apparent lack of innovation in their core sound. If this song played randomly I wouldn’t say “wow this is that really good track by ALSDEAD” like I would Violent of Reason. I’d just say “it’s ALSDEAD but it’s not that memorable. Oh well…” This track also fades out, and anyone that’s read this long enough knows that I regard tracks that fade out as tracks that lost direction somewhere in the compositional phase and didn’t know how to end off on a bang. Vanity didn’t do much to assert itself as the next generation of ALSDEAD and just meandered around as if it were looking for its bigger brother S.a.g.A. So much more could have, or rather SHOULD HAVE, been done with this track.

I dislike the initial version of Kizu – I dislike this track. It’s boring, lifeless, sounds almost nothing like Kizu until Maki kicks in. If Maki wasn’t singing I wouldn’t know WHAT this song would be but the instrumental portion of this is as riveting as watching lead chip. Acoustic does NOT MEAN BORING. I’ve heard some really beautiful unplugged renditions of tracks before – Freesia and Conceived Sorrow for example – but just pure acoustic tracks are usually boring as hell and are as painful as hemorrhoids to sit through (YEAH I’M LOOKING AT YOU GACKT). Now this is nowhere near as bad as No Ni Saku Hana no You ni but it’s still not excellent, which is all I expect out of these boys since I have high standards for them. The beginning sounds so lazy and then they start spicing it up near the end which THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE ALL TRACK. I don’t know what possessed them to even attempt to do this since most of it sounds half-assed. If they were going for that dreamy, I-don’t-know-where-I-am vibe with the acoustics, they pretty much missed the mark most of the time. It’s noticeable when the acoustic has to wind down to keep the flow and everything just gets so empty. They have the basic structure down but the little fills with the drums and the groove present in the original just aren’t here. Hell, they don’t even start twin acoustic melody until two minutes in, and when all you have are TWO instruments you better work it. I was looking forward to this after the lackluster previews of the first two, but nope they kinda didn’t hit it out the ballpark like I wanted.

I must admit though that acoustic arrangements to ALSDEAD is akin to black metal for Morning Musume. If they did an unplugged arrangement of Kizu, which I would have rather they done, this could have been much better.

So yes, one of my favorite newcomers is going down, down, down the chute. They haven’t reached that level where I drop them off at the next station and wave goodbye but they really need to bring it back in style and they need to evolve while they’re at it. I’m tired of hearing the same shit over and over again and it really is the same shit over and over again. I know they can do better – maybe if they stopped farting out singles every few months they’d have time to work on their music and make it memorable.

I’m on the fence with this one guys. Fans of ALSDEAD will enjoy it but not to the extent of their previous works, and anyone looking to get into them shouldn’t start here.