- "Art Drawn By Vomit" – 1:49
- "Agony" – 4:15
- Hyena" – 4:16
- "Burial Applicant" – 4:27
- "Ganges ni Akai Bara" (ガンジスに紅い薔薇) – 4:08
- "Regret" – 4:30
- "Calm Envy" – 6:05
- "Swallowtail on the Death Valley" – 4:06
- "Mob 136 Bars" – 2:39
- "Gentle Lie" – 3:53
- Filth in the Beauty" – 4:11
- "Circle of Swindler" – 2:58
- "Chizuru" (千鶴) – 5:47
- "People Error" – 2:58
Art Drawn by Vomit - F
I want to scream at the title track right now. Art Drawn by Vomit is a horrible 1:49 full of bad English, overused female vocals and clips of all the songs that are coming up on the album. At no point is this track rewarding. I would categorize this alongside -------- as one of the worst introductions I have ever heard. Skip.
Agony - D
Not as bad as the previous track, but still pretty atrocious. Agony is supposed to be a stripped-down Linkin Park clone, laden with more cases of bad Engrish and lazy instrumentation. What makes this song worse is that it sounds so empty and hollow as if it were a last minute addition to the tracklist. There is an abuse of turntables and a guitar lick in the background that becomes very repetitive over the pentatonic bass and the standard drumming. Nowhere in this song does Agony take a turn from the hip-hop/rock infusion that was done badly - so badly that you actually might laugh at The GazettE's attempt at being serious. Skip.
Hyena - B
Hyena actually has some energy to it but I expect nothing less from an A-side I heard and liked already. It flows nicely from the last track and when it launches into the screaming verses you forget all about the first two tracks. The switch at the chorus sounds natural and is a nice switch from the screaming Ruki that we heard earlier on in the track but the repetitive structure wears on my ears with continuous listens. The first two tracks should have been skipped and the album should have started with Hyena.
Burial Applicant - A-
Finally, a real song that doesn't suck. The beginning has some atrocious hip-hop elements that song could have done without, some passages sound like Repetition of Hatred, and the ending is a bit rough but overall Burial Applicant feels like the "start" of STACKED RUBBISH as a song. Burial Applicant feels a lot like Hyena in structure and especially in the switch from the verse to the chorus but I don't mind this. I say this this early on because I know that later on in the album you will be wishing some tracks sounded as good as this one.
Ganges ni Akai Bara - C
It does not feel right coming after Burial Applicant. In fact, Ganges ni Akai Bara doesn't feel right anywhere on this album. The former track has this melancholy atmosphere surrounding it and contrary to almost every other song on here "Ganges" feels needlessly upbeat. I would say Reita has a "bass solo" but it's so badly done I don't even want to mention it. Also, by the end of the song, all the Ruki parts become overwhelming and it's too much to enjoy. It's obviously a rehash of the abomination that was on NIL and even though it is done better here, poor placement and poor song choice delegate this to "mediocre" land.
Regret - C
Once again, senselessly upbeat but at least the two upbeat songs are stuck together to create a portion of suck instead of dispersing the suck throughout the CD. Regret is not a ballad or a rougher number so classifying this genre-wise is tricky. What this song does embody is a feeling of "playing it safe". All the instruments come together nicely, Ruki's voice sits atop them and belts his notes well, and the production is nice and crisp but it's all too damn standard. None of the members try to take a turn and do something unexpected and at the end of the day Regret comes off boring.
Calm Envy - C-
The first "ballad" of the album, Calm Envy is a stereotypical Visual Kei ballad. That is intended to be an insult by the way because The GazettE is capable of creating intense, drawing ballads and I do not feel anything from Calm Envy. Looks like even their forte was fucked up on this album. Add the obnoxious female vocals that do NOT need to be in this song and come in every three fucking seconds, a weak chorus that has no energy injected into it, and the solo that grabs my attention halfway into the song, and you have a weak excuse for a ballad on this album. After the solo things start to pick up a little because Ruki doesn't take a stereotypical, formulaic approach to the ending lines and there's a second solo leading out. Even though BOTH solos don't fit I will just pretend the first three minutes did not exist and that the last three minutes of Calm Envy is all we need to hear.
Swallowtail on the Death Valley - C-
No....no no. Night of pussy? The WORST example of overuse of female backvocals on the album thrown in without any thought whatsoever? Swallowtail here had the capability of being a catchy number but the obnoxious vocals every three seconds makes it very difficult for me to enjoy. Ruki also tries to sound sexy and isn't completely successful at what it is he does. Add that in with a song that doesn't fit coming after Calm Envy and we have a song that was actually overthought. If the extra elements are cut out and the track order was rearranged somewhat, I think I could grow to like this song more. I actually want to like this song but there are so many elements in this song that make me dislike it I have to leave it with a C- and move on.
MOB 136 BARS - D-
Does the suck not stop? Ruki's screaming sounds like someone shoved a drill in his ass set to hyperspeed and the instrumentation is just a riff-fest of suck. Drums are loud, bass is lazy, structure is redundant at best. What 136 comes off as is a bad attempt at trying to be American rock instead of Gazerock. This definitely does not belong here in between two softer tracks and it's inclusion just sounds awful. There is no getting used to this wall of noise in any way whatsoever. Skip.
Gentle Lie - B+
Finally, this musical schizophrenia pops out something halfway listenable! Gentle Lie is quite the entertaining track, even if it isn't typical GazettE. On this album, I will take anything that is performed well and although Gentle Lie is jarring coming after the screaming 136 we just sat through it manages to take the listener in a different direction. There are no annoying female vocals to deal with and Ruki delivers his lyrics well. The whole "no no no" thing he does sounds better when it's three of him and not three digitized women. The structure of the song is also fluid and there isn't one part that I can complain about. I am not a fan of this song in the slightest but I do have to acknowledge when The GazettE does something right.
Filth in the Beauty - A-
It's a love-or-hate deal and I am a fan of this track. Filth in the Beauty is such a departure from everything else we have heard so far and that makes this track better. It's the first time we were subjected to such monstrous amounts of female backvocals but what makes this song tolerable in my book is that the ladies actually sing their own lines and don't parrot Ruki, which is what really grinds my gears with a lot of the songs above. The whole solo section to screamy part is done well and the entire message - incest fyi - is just wrapped up so well that this refreshing song is a good reward for anyone who managed to sit through this album long enough to get to this point.
Circle of Swindler - B-
It's in the same vein of MOB 136 BARS but listenable. Circle of Swindler channels some aspects of American rock with Ruki's vocals completely in English and a rhythm section that sprints flawlessly. The solo at 1:12 is pretty good and that is followed by a quick bass solo before they jump back into it all. I would usually categorize this as "not the best here" but it IS the one of best here so just imagine how bad the rest of this album is. Circle of Swindler takes some getting used to and in this album of many different, clashing melodies this might be a song that fans of the harder side of The GazettE can appreciate amidst all this chaos.
Chizuru - A-
It's another ballad but I find this one more entertaining than Calm Envy. There was something about the former track that upset me. I am not sure if it was the guitar lines, the constant female vocals, or the lack of a tangible atmosphere. What that track got wrong is what Chizuru got right. The female backvocals are set perfectly in the mix and they add a haunting dimension without having to repeat what has already been said in a copycat way. The bass and the electronic distortion work together in the beginning of the song to create a dark, sorrowful tone and halfway in The GazettE manages to change pace without leaving behind the atmosphere too much. Chizuru moves inbetween two atmospheres very well and makes for an interesting listen hat doesn't take half of the track's lifespan to produce. I lower the rating of this track because it was re-recorded and the original on the Hyena single was superior due to the fact that the muddy bass was working in favor of the track's darkness.
People Error - B
*obviously inspired by Shinsou*
With that aside, People Error is pretty nice but it doesn't belong at the end of the album. In a way, it does belong at the end of the album but Chizuru was strong enough to end the album on it's own. People Error should have replaced Art Drawn by Vomit as the opening to this album because that would have been preferrable to....whatever the hell the intro track was. I hope having a pure piano instrumental ending does not become another staple Visual Kei trick because it seems almost every band wants to do a variation of it (Dir en grey, The GazettE, Nega, etc.) but here it's the nice, unpredictable way to end the album off.
So this is the eponymous STACKED RUBBISH for you. It starts off like a mess, gets decent around track four and then plummets like a rock until it gets to track 10. After track 10, the album becomes alright in my opinion but having a 14 track album go down this hard is a terrible waste of time, money, and talent. DIM is a complete turnaround from this.
What STACKED RUBBISH suffers from is incoherency. Some tracks are shoved onto the album almost at random and don't work where they are placed. Other tracks try to incorporate too many elements into it and instead of coming off as something fresh it ends up confused and over-saturated. Other tracks just plain suck and don't belong on this album. The worst stab that makes STACKED RUBBISH an epic failure is that there is no central "theme". These "theme" can just be in tone. DIM has a theme of "darkness" and NIL has a theme of "loneliness". STACKED RUBBISH feels like two EP's jammed together and constantly fights with itself as to what it wants to do.
At the end of the album, all it makes me want to do is not listen anymore.
Recommended:
Burial Applicant
Score: 39%
I want to scream at the title track right now. Art Drawn by Vomit is a horrible 1:49 full of bad English, overused female vocals and clips of all the songs that are coming up on the album. At no point is this track rewarding. I would categorize this alongside -------- as one of the worst introductions I have ever heard. Skip.
Agony - D
Not as bad as the previous track, but still pretty atrocious. Agony is supposed to be a stripped-down Linkin Park clone, laden with more cases of bad Engrish and lazy instrumentation. What makes this song worse is that it sounds so empty and hollow as if it were a last minute addition to the tracklist. There is an abuse of turntables and a guitar lick in the background that becomes very repetitive over the pentatonic bass and the standard drumming. Nowhere in this song does Agony take a turn from the hip-hop/rock infusion that was done badly - so badly that you actually might laugh at The GazettE's attempt at being serious. Skip.
Hyena - B
Hyena actually has some energy to it but I expect nothing less from an A-side I heard and liked already. It flows nicely from the last track and when it launches into the screaming verses you forget all about the first two tracks. The switch at the chorus sounds natural and is a nice switch from the screaming Ruki that we heard earlier on in the track but the repetitive structure wears on my ears with continuous listens. The first two tracks should have been skipped and the album should have started with Hyena.
Burial Applicant - A-
Finally, a real song that doesn't suck. The beginning has some atrocious hip-hop elements that song could have done without, some passages sound like Repetition of Hatred, and the ending is a bit rough but overall Burial Applicant feels like the "start" of STACKED RUBBISH as a song. Burial Applicant feels a lot like Hyena in structure and especially in the switch from the verse to the chorus but I don't mind this. I say this this early on because I know that later on in the album you will be wishing some tracks sounded as good as this one.
Ganges ni Akai Bara - C
It does not feel right coming after Burial Applicant. In fact, Ganges ni Akai Bara doesn't feel right anywhere on this album. The former track has this melancholy atmosphere surrounding it and contrary to almost every other song on here "Ganges" feels needlessly upbeat. I would say Reita has a "bass solo" but it's so badly done I don't even want to mention it. Also, by the end of the song, all the Ruki parts become overwhelming and it's too much to enjoy. It's obviously a rehash of the abomination that was on NIL and even though it is done better here, poor placement and poor song choice delegate this to "mediocre" land.
Regret - C
Once again, senselessly upbeat but at least the two upbeat songs are stuck together to create a portion of suck instead of dispersing the suck throughout the CD. Regret is not a ballad or a rougher number so classifying this genre-wise is tricky. What this song does embody is a feeling of "playing it safe". All the instruments come together nicely, Ruki's voice sits atop them and belts his notes well, and the production is nice and crisp but it's all too damn standard. None of the members try to take a turn and do something unexpected and at the end of the day Regret comes off boring.
Calm Envy - C-
The first "ballad" of the album, Calm Envy is a stereotypical Visual Kei ballad. That is intended to be an insult by the way because The GazettE is capable of creating intense, drawing ballads and I do not feel anything from Calm Envy. Looks like even their forte was fucked up on this album. Add the obnoxious female vocals that do NOT need to be in this song and come in every three fucking seconds, a weak chorus that has no energy injected into it, and the solo that grabs my attention halfway into the song, and you have a weak excuse for a ballad on this album. After the solo things start to pick up a little because Ruki doesn't take a stereotypical, formulaic approach to the ending lines and there's a second solo leading out. Even though BOTH solos don't fit I will just pretend the first three minutes did not exist and that the last three minutes of Calm Envy is all we need to hear.
Swallowtail on the Death Valley - C-
No....no no. Night of pussy? The WORST example of overuse of female backvocals on the album thrown in without any thought whatsoever? Swallowtail here had the capability of being a catchy number but the obnoxious vocals every three seconds makes it very difficult for me to enjoy. Ruki also tries to sound sexy and isn't completely successful at what it is he does. Add that in with a song that doesn't fit coming after Calm Envy and we have a song that was actually overthought. If the extra elements are cut out and the track order was rearranged somewhat, I think I could grow to like this song more. I actually want to like this song but there are so many elements in this song that make me dislike it I have to leave it with a C- and move on.
MOB 136 BARS - D-
Does the suck not stop? Ruki's screaming sounds like someone shoved a drill in his ass set to hyperspeed and the instrumentation is just a riff-fest of suck. Drums are loud, bass is lazy, structure is redundant at best. What 136 comes off as is a bad attempt at trying to be American rock instead of Gazerock. This definitely does not belong here in between two softer tracks and it's inclusion just sounds awful. There is no getting used to this wall of noise in any way whatsoever. Skip.
Gentle Lie - B+
Finally, this musical schizophrenia pops out something halfway listenable! Gentle Lie is quite the entertaining track, even if it isn't typical GazettE. On this album, I will take anything that is performed well and although Gentle Lie is jarring coming after the screaming 136 we just sat through it manages to take the listener in a different direction. There are no annoying female vocals to deal with and Ruki delivers his lyrics well. The whole "no no no" thing he does sounds better when it's three of him and not three digitized women. The structure of the song is also fluid and there isn't one part that I can complain about. I am not a fan of this song in the slightest but I do have to acknowledge when The GazettE does something right.
Filth in the Beauty - A-
It's a love-or-hate deal and I am a fan of this track. Filth in the Beauty is such a departure from everything else we have heard so far and that makes this track better. It's the first time we were subjected to such monstrous amounts of female backvocals but what makes this song tolerable in my book is that the ladies actually sing their own lines and don't parrot Ruki, which is what really grinds my gears with a lot of the songs above. The whole solo section to screamy part is done well and the entire message - incest fyi - is just wrapped up so well that this refreshing song is a good reward for anyone who managed to sit through this album long enough to get to this point.
Circle of Swindler - B-
It's in the same vein of MOB 136 BARS but listenable. Circle of Swindler channels some aspects of American rock with Ruki's vocals completely in English and a rhythm section that sprints flawlessly. The solo at 1:12 is pretty good and that is followed by a quick bass solo before they jump back into it all. I would usually categorize this as "not the best here" but it IS the one of best here so just imagine how bad the rest of this album is. Circle of Swindler takes some getting used to and in this album of many different, clashing melodies this might be a song that fans of the harder side of The GazettE can appreciate amidst all this chaos.
Chizuru - A-
It's another ballad but I find this one more entertaining than Calm Envy. There was something about the former track that upset me. I am not sure if it was the guitar lines, the constant female vocals, or the lack of a tangible atmosphere. What that track got wrong is what Chizuru got right. The female backvocals are set perfectly in the mix and they add a haunting dimension without having to repeat what has already been said in a copycat way. The bass and the electronic distortion work together in the beginning of the song to create a dark, sorrowful tone and halfway in The GazettE manages to change pace without leaving behind the atmosphere too much. Chizuru moves inbetween two atmospheres very well and makes for an interesting listen hat doesn't take half of the track's lifespan to produce. I lower the rating of this track because it was re-recorded and the original on the Hyena single was superior due to the fact that the muddy bass was working in favor of the track's darkness.
People Error - B
*obviously inspired by Shinsou*
With that aside, People Error is pretty nice but it doesn't belong at the end of the album. In a way, it does belong at the end of the album but Chizuru was strong enough to end the album on it's own. People Error should have replaced Art Drawn by Vomit as the opening to this album because that would have been preferrable to....whatever the hell the intro track was. I hope having a pure piano instrumental ending does not become another staple Visual Kei trick because it seems almost every band wants to do a variation of it (Dir en grey, The GazettE, Nega, etc.) but here it's the nice, unpredictable way to end the album off.
So this is the eponymous STACKED RUBBISH for you. It starts off like a mess, gets decent around track four and then plummets like a rock until it gets to track 10. After track 10, the album becomes alright in my opinion but having a 14 track album go down this hard is a terrible waste of time, money, and talent. DIM is a complete turnaround from this.
What STACKED RUBBISH suffers from is incoherency. Some tracks are shoved onto the album almost at random and don't work where they are placed. Other tracks try to incorporate too many elements into it and instead of coming off as something fresh it ends up confused and over-saturated. Other tracks just plain suck and don't belong on this album. The worst stab that makes STACKED RUBBISH an epic failure is that there is no central "theme". These "theme" can just be in tone. DIM has a theme of "darkness" and NIL has a theme of "loneliness". STACKED RUBBISH feels like two EP's jammed together and constantly fights with itself as to what it wants to do.
At the end of the album, all it makes me want to do is not listen anymore.
Recommended:
Burial Applicant
Score: 39%
No comments:
Post a Comment