And because of MUSIC, I am going to be ruthless with this album just to show you that even when I'm harsh it's miles better than MUSIC.
01. Intro
02. patchwork
03. Vermillion
04. stupid
05. Barricade
06. Shining
07. Shiroi Ashiato
08. CRAZY-FLAG
09. Shoujo A
10. ROCKER'S
11. Dance Rock Night
12. Domino
13. Kowareteiku Sekai
01. Intro
02. Patchwork
03. Vermillion
04. stupid
05. Shoujo A
06. CRAZY-FLAG
07. Shining
08. Shiroi Ashiato
09. ROCKER'S
10. Kowareteiku Sekai
Intro is, well, an intro. I think this is the second intro (first one being Lyrical Sympathy's Intro) that I actually could get along with. It's got some tribal drumming going on aside relentless drums, sparse use of the guitars that creep in over time, and an ominous tone that starts flowing once the guitars come in for good. Hear that going on in the background? You don't? That's called "the lack of superfluous electronic effects that the song doesn't need not being present". It gets a little repetitive towards the end but the fact that I managed to sit through it and not be bored to tears means it's OK as far as introductions go. I still would rather jump into the album.
patchwork is where girugämesh tries to channel some MUCC (hey, look at the coincidence) into their sound. Miya co-produced half of this album and Tatsurou provides backup growls for this song. If you are unsure which one it is, it's the deeper ones. girugämesh made a wise choice putting this song first as it is one of the stronger tracks on Girugämesh. Unlike SHIT THE ALBUM, the rock portion of girugämesh is clearly on display here. Satoshi's singing contains some fucking passion and isn't distorted to all hell, and the guitars even have a break down section that even Break Down didn't have. The end duetted scream just ends this song off right. For once in a few days, I can't bitch.
Vermillion is a less stellar patchwork. It continues in the vein of hard rock and the chorus is a tad off-putting compared to the rest of the song but overall it fits alright. A part of me wants to like Vermillion but it's construction is overall just not as good as the last track and it's nothing a band member did wrong per se but it's just that the song is. It's the way it was made and it could always be made better but I have no suggestions as to what to throw in in order for me to like it more. I could rattle off more inventive guitarlines, something other than a breakdown, and an ending that rivals the creativity of the beginning but that's all copout garbage spewing from the mouth of a weeaboo that doesn't know what he speaks of, right? That music video is the generic, spin around the rosey shit that is alright but overdone to all hell. What this song sounds like is 2007 Dir en grey done right, with pinch harmonics in the right place and drum lines that aren't as static as asswaffles. Three things put this lower than patchwork: one is the pitch the guitars go for at the beginning and when Satoshi ends his verses (lessens the badass feeling of the song), two is the lack of Tatsurou, three is that it came after patchwork.
stupid is...goddamn stupid. It's not even two minutes long and it's just Satoshi participating in some bark-and-call with the band. It sounds like a heavier, crapped up, sped up version of patchwork. patchwork was heavy enough. What doesn't help is that stupid is 1:44 and it repeats the chorus. Fuck, it's so short I wouldn't have minded 20 seconds cut off if they just cut out the stereotypical end and made a senseless, short mosher. But no, what does girugämesh do? Make an obnoxiously short-yet-lengthy senseless short mosher. It's such a fucking contradiction it takes more time to figure out than it does for stupid to play. I hate short songs that are placed in the middle of an album that aren't epic, and this is one of them. I hate stupid. Moving on.
Barricade starts out with some sampling of a beating heart and some singing, which makes you think it's going to do something other than be senselessly heavy. Then a few seconds in, it becomes one of those songs that alternate between loud passages and quiet verses (this time amped to the max) before the song devolves into a bunch of screaming after the chorus. That's when it loses the energy for me because screaming your ass off pointlessly no longer impresses me as it had two years ago. Sure, the screams are punctuated by a sung verse and there's a faint meow somewhere in there but Barricade comes off as a (much) weaker version of patchwork. Why is it that the last three tracks sound just like the second and it's all been worse?
Even before the advent of MUSIC and the suck of girugämesh I did not like shining. The electronic effects are weaved into the rock more and it comes off as an 80's piece that does not feel like girugämesh. I cannot complain because it's not another patchwork but I hate the chorus. It does not fit, and not in that "harsh contrast" way I usually bitch about. It just feels obnoxious and awkwardly placed. What is sad is the fact that this song would not fit into the soundscape of MUSIC because it is too good but it doesn't fit here either so it's existence boggles me. I can't even say it's a new sound because the new sound births shitbuckets next to this. I dislike it now because I KNOW what it is they have become and it gives me flashbacks to the feelings I felt while listening to MUSIC. If they at least started pouring out more types of music like shining some of the hardcore fans of this band might give a passing mention to girugämesh. Back to shining, and sans any mention of le MUSIC album it suffers from poor track placement and poor chorus melody.
I don't get what this is doing here either. Shiroi Ashiato is yet another stumble in this album and it seems like after Vermillion this album took a huge tumble. Is this supposed to be a sentimental ballad, because that solo portion at about 2:01 sounds too damn hopeful to fit in here. I can't even find any part of this song to get attached to: Shiroi Ashiato is slow, uninteresting, and full of plodding bass thanks to ShuU. It feels longer than the four minute runtime it gives itself and by the end of the track I have no incentive to go back. For once JaME and I agree on half of something, and that is that Shiroi Ashiato just isn't that good of a track. It's also another victim of bad track placement.
CRAZY-FLAG is a stupid title but it's the best offering we've gotten since...Barricade. It doesn't sound like Barricade but it is an upbeat rocker piece so if you need something to rock out to and you don't want to use one of your "good" songs this is a safe bet. It sounds similar to Barricade but that's girugämesh's "sound" working to good effect here and these two tracks before it breaks the monotony enough for you not to notice. Do you notice why I keep comparing these two tracks? It's because they are about equally as good, which means CRAZY-FLAG is mediocre. I don't want a patchwork part five.
Shoujo A is our first stab at a rock piece that doesn't sound remotely like patchwork and it's fucking great. I would sex this song every day of the week; Shoujo A is that rare song by girugämesh that doesn't sound like something they've done before. It's sexy, seductive, hard and experimental. What this track has is substance, something that most of the tracks this far haven't had in good amounts. Some gripe at the short run time but I view it as a blessing that it doesn't ruin the sexiness by going on too long. It's just the right length. If you walk away from this album wanting to listen to one track, this should be right up there. It leads in to ROCKER's and I think that was rather stupid and ROCKER'S should have just had the fade but whatever. It's there and I have to deal with it. It's still highly recommended.
ROCKER's is also another pretty dumb title and it's another hard rocker not named Shoujo A. It feels slightly different than the others this far because it has Nii rather than Ryo as a composer but it's inevitably a "girugämesh" hard rocker. What it reminds me of most is a Loudness cover but it's actually decent. The chorus is a little off but Satoshi manages to make me like it with some not-completely atrocious falsetto. It's more of the same but it's a little better than the rest of it's "kind" and that's saying something since everything before shining wore me down with the feeling of "it's all the same goddamn shit".
What the fuck is this shit? No. Girugämesh was starting to get good and then ShuU had to go compose this. What killed it for me was 0:37, which sounds corny and not jazzy or clubby or whatever the hell they were trying to go for. If they want to create what I think they wanted to make then the guitars needed to not be so heavy and crunchy. What results from this bastardized disco track is an amalgamation of fans dying from shame and obnoxious guitar and bass lines. I would poke myself in the eye before I would recommend you listen to this.
Domino starts off like it's going to be annoying as hell but it busts into a guitar line that's just the right volume. Not too hard and not too soft, it leads into some acoustic strums that we haven't heard all album. There's also some more instruments and effects thrown into the chorus here and it's a bit different from your usual girugämesh rock. The best part about Domino is that it doesn't sound like "girugämesh" in some parts and sounds like a different, better rock band interested in learning more than one way to strum a guitar and put things together. It's sheer difference from the last two tracks warrants a recommendation.
Kowareteiku Sekai was the one song that just made Girugämesh for me. It was also the song that made me do this review and even though you can't tell I started here. This song makes me cry for two reasons: one is that it's such a beautiful song and the fucktarded confuckery they put out on MUSIC and every release after does not compare to this and the second is because the message of the song is just so damn powerful. Unlike other Visual Kei artists that try to throw in jumbled English to sound cool, Satoshi took a shot of Monster or the equivalent Japanese badass drink, said "fuck that" and wrote a fucking meaningful song. I think that the message to this song is so damn important, I'm going to put it below.
A Breaking World
Because it's white, its said it wants to be white
Because it's white, something can be blended in
The water in a little bowl became clear
Little by little the colors faded away
Eventually humans corrupt
Humans can be discolored by other humans
This star they both live on together is discolored
They strangle themselves
How do you describe the time
when the trees coldly looked up at the building that towers above?
The earth is touched by a bloodied hand
Without kindness, flowers withered and died
And by that hand, which has no heart,
the future without sins is murdered
Eventually humans corrupt
Humans can be discolored by other humans
This star they both live on together is discolored
They strangle themselves
In this civilization what sort of life do you picture is the one we wanted?
In this selfish egotistical struggle
What was shed was not blood, but the tears of the planet
The Earth, born so many billions of years ago
The proportion of time we've been in existence is just a few seconds
We have not aided in the recovery of the planet
We have not lived our lives in order to help the earth
However, we alone have known an unblemished love
The End is near by, but you who have known love will be all right
+++
I came into Kowareteiku Sekai wanting to hate it because I hate all ballads. I hate all ballads I have heard in the Visual Kei world because they all follow the same formula and very few people can pull it off. Somewhere along the line they all fuck up: there is no passion in the vocals, the ballad is too long or too short, the message isn't important or they reach the climax too early and then have to wander around for the rest of the song trying to fill up time. Kowareteiku Sekai (<-it is FUCKING WRITTEN LIKE THIS GET IT RIGHT) does it all right and takes some appropriate risks even for girugämesh. There is some tribal drumming, some acoustic guitars, some strings and compared to the first, heavy half of the album it's mere existence is a risk. Sure, it follows the pattern for ballads which is slow build up to climactic finish and if you don't like those songs you won't like it here because it's no different, but if that doesn't bother you so much or at all then it is done very effectively here. Just imagine a hard band doing something you expect but wouldn't expect to be so damn good, like this. The best part is that it doesn't come off as a token offering - it feels like girugämesh actually did this song first and put their all into it. Sure, it's got some seconds of silence at the end of it but the first time I heard it I was in such fucking shock I sat there for two minutes and didn't move. It works here.
Ah, the days when girugämesh made music and not noise.
I can't come up with a proper ending and the next post will explain why. Has nothing to do with this band.
Recommended:
Shoujo A
Patchwork
Kowareteiku Sekai
Score: 59%
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