HEVYDEVY FORUMS

I've searched beforehand to make sure I wasn't stepping on anyone else's territory here, but I would just like to know, if anyone else aside from me has heard of these guys. Personally, I love them. My favorite Japanese Death/Grind/Industrial/Pop/Speed/Thrash/Salsa/Mamba/Fish out of water Metal band.


I'm one of those losers that likes Uroboros the best though. Kinda saddens me that the scene crowd are starting to cling onto these guys.

BUT ANYWAY, have you guys heard the new single, perchance?



Man, I feel so much like a weeaboo now. haha.

Love'em. Also hate that they are becoming a "scene" type band. Definitely dig their "dont give a fuck" approach to writing music.

Well i don't think they're TRYING to be scene. They're just all like

Hey lets throw this animal into a blender and record it.

ITS OUR NEW SINGLE!

I feckin' hate j-everything.


Amber will probably ladyjizz all over this thread though.

Heh.... Amber.


OH GODDAMMIT.

Leechmaster wrote:I feckin' hate j-everything.


Amber will probably ladyjizz all over this thread though.

Her and Islandsinthesky (if he wasn't banned or whatever). They'd make a big pile of jizz.

So I'm the only logical DeG fan on this forum from what I'm seeing here?

TantricNferno wrote:So I'm the only logical DeG fan on this forum from what I'm seeing here?

Define logical?

They've been around for quite a while, and like most musician-types alter their sound/songwriting styles for one of two reasons:

1) To go along with whatever the mainstream churns out to boost profit.
2) To actually evolve and hone, in order to attain a signature sound.

IMHO If they'd have stuck with their style pre "Gauze" I'd be a muchos happy lady.

They don't strike me as a sellout type band though.

Dir en Grey were a band that i used to have a bit of interest in about 7 or 8 years ago when the stuff they were creating was a little more bizarre and 'out there'. ever since 2004 though, they didn't really release anything that caught my ear.
they were Visual Kei (dudes that love to dress up as woman-like as they possibly can) for most of their career up until 04, when they dropped it to become more commercially viable to the American market (because in the US, a lot of people dont take kindly to guys that dress in more feminine attire)

it seems that nowadays i have a great dislike for what they do, but im not sure if it is because of what they are doing now or if its for the fact that so many bands followed in their musical style and now japan is flooded with bands who sound exactly the same.

I gotta say though, some of their older videos were a real trip, they had some great concepts behind the videos.

kickass song
[youtube]F1nFCaZKdr0[/youtube]

flood_of_rain wrote:Dir en Grey were a band that i used to have a bit of interest in about 7 or 8 years ago when the stuff they were creating was a little more bizarre and 'out there'. ever since 2004 though, they didn't really release anything that caught my ear.
they were Visual Kei (dudes that love to dress up as woman-like as they possibly can) for most of their career up until 04, when they dropped it to become more commercially viable to the American market (because in the US, a lot of people dont take kindly to guys that dress in more feminine attire)

it seems that nowadays i have a great dislike for what they do, but im not sure if it is because of what they are doing now or if its for the fact that so many bands followed in their musical style and now japan is flooded with bands who sound exactly the same.

I gotta say though, some of their older videos were a real trip, they had some great concepts behind the videos.

Uroboros doesn't really strike me as a very American-like album though.

I know it pretty much sold dead-in-the-water here.


It does kinda suck though how everyone in Japan and their grandma are trying to be the next DeG though.


I don't mean to sound rude, but I think I remember Kyo saying in one of his interviews that like even though the fans really matter to them, that if they come to the shows because of the way that they look and NOT because of the music, they might as well shouldn't even show up. Therefore, I don't think they changed their visual style to get more popular, I honestly feel it was more of a personal decision.

TantricNferno wrote:I don't mean to sound rude, but I think I remember Kyo saying in one of his interviews that like even though the fans really matter to them, that if they come to the shows because of the way that they look and NOT because of the music, they might as well shouldn't even show up. Therefore, I don't think they changed their visual style to get more popular, I honestly feel it was more of a personal decision.

If that was the case, why bother with the Visual Kei stage in the first place?
That element was partly what brought them initial fame and cult/underground status before they attained relative mainstream success. To give that up, it must have been a 'personal decision' to earn more money- not make more music, gig extensively and reach a bigger fanbase.

Seriously, why?

[youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9PZ1uUH6qlA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9PZ1uUH6qlA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

I guess.

They don't seem TOO mainstream to me. I mean, barely anyone knows about them.

I couldn't say alot about the money issue.



To me personally, they seemed to have all grown as musicians, and maybe they themselves found the VK thing after a while to be childish.

And given some of the VK bands now, I don't blame them for dropping it.

flood_of_rain wrote:Dir en Grey were a band that i used to have a bit of interest in about 7 or 8 years ago when the stuff they were creating was a little more bizarre and 'out there'. ever since 2004 though, they didn't really release anything that caught my ear.
they were Visual Kei (dudes that love to dress up as woman-like as they possibly can) for most of their career up until 04, when they dropped it to become more commercially viable to the American market (because in the US, a lot of people dont take kindly to guys that dress in more feminine attire)

it seems that nowadays i have a great dislike for what they do, but im not sure if it is because of what they are doing now or if its for the fact that so many bands followed in their musical style and now japan is flooded with bands who sound exactly the same.

I gotta say though, some of their older videos were a real trip, they had some great concepts behind the videos.

Actually, they dropped it because Kyo got caught on fire, by some pyrotechnics that went wrong, and almost lost his hearing. They did stuff in America when they still had the visual kei image as far as I'm aware, because there is a fairly large VK following out there. (Even in 90% of them are complete douchebags, but that's aside the point.)

Nowadays they are more influenced by American rock and metal, hence the further change.

And I like DeG, but they aren't my favourite Japanese music. Malice Mizer, Pierrot, Acid Black Cherry, Gackt and Miyavi though... Mm... Saku is my favourite song though. And played live is phenominal.

Theres some great VK bands, some are so totally over the top and ridilous I can't help but like it, but theres an awful lot of repetitive tripe as well. Both in image and sound.