Album: Dio ~Distraught Overlord~ - DICTATOR

DICTATOR

Date released: 19.12.2008.

Track list:
1. HAUNTING [PV]　　
2. SPLENDID WORLD
3. GOD forsaken~僕は君の着飾った身体を共有する世界の隣人などでは無い~ [PV] (GOD forsaken ~Boku wa kimi no kikazatta karada wo kyouyuu suru sekai no rinjin nado dewa nai~)
4. Silence of Sorrow　　
5. 硝子の海 (Garasu no umi)
6. day after day [PV]　
7. INSTRUMENT OF HELL
8. 独裁 [PV] (Dokusai)
9. last dance [Album Version]
99. 断頭台は誰が為に揺れる [PV] (Dantoutai wa darega tame ni yureru)

Dictator is the first album of the hard Visual kei band Dio ~Distraught Overlord~.

The album begins with HAUNTING, one of the best and most refined tracks from this band up to date! The intro and the guitars have D'espairsRay-at-best (heck, it even sounds more like D'espairsRay than D'espairsRay does nowadays) written all over, the literally haunting (nice title pick) mood, mystic and dark layers, the tension which doesn't hold still, not even a second make this track a powerful and breathtaking way to start an album making you want more! Seriously, this left my jaw hanging.

And the blast and excitement doesn't stop on SPLENDID WORLD a bone crushing, grinding, mincer of distorsion and growling. Fast and furious with riffs that invide you to bang your head off and mosh to death anybody next to you! And again I feel some D'espairsRayness in it, but way brutal than D'espa would ever do it. I propose that somebody should send these first two tracks to D'espairsRay and say "Now make your new album sound like this", that be great...

And then we come to the familiar track GOD forsaken. I was a bit pissed when I saw that half of the album are the songs I have already heard, but all of the new songs are rearranged to sound new and fresh, while still sounding familiar. GOD forsaken has had it's production quality lowered on a some semi-trash version which really makes the song benefit from it because it sounds more raw, less dimmed and more intense than in original. Garasu no umi is also mixed the same way and I like how the pre-choruses have been lifted up a bit, making them more expressful, whereabout day after day has been altered to a minimum, but still left as a intense, feeling coloured piece metal-rock piece.

Silence of Sorrow is a fine dance between profound piano tones, strong bass and loud guitars. It's a very good balance between blasting violence and emotions sewn into the verses and chorus. Unfortunately this intense piece is the most unmemorable piece on the album, maybe because it draws links to some other of their songs, or because it laks a certain memorable phrase, I don't really know...

Besides the relatively normal day after day, the second half of the album is somehow a bit bizarre at certain parts. INSTRUMENT OF HELL is an awesome fest of brooding darkness, brutal growling, D'espairsRay dark industrial vibe and mood, until we reach the chorus and Mikaru gets too Hizumi frenzy and goes with the Infection like meowing in singing which neither Hizumi nor Mikaru can pull off and this nu-metal style (From what I have heard all these nu-metal bands always add this additional vocals to words so it somehow sounds like meowing to me, you know like mei instead of me etc...) in the chorus is death to this song which might have been an excellent piece of darkness. God damn Mikaru, God damn *slaps him in the face*.

Then we come to DOKUSAI an almost puristic brutal death metal (yet with slightly more sense, than most of brutal metal pieces I've heard) piece with growling, frantic riffs and double bass all over, being one of the most berserk death metal pieces in Visual kei, as far as I have heared. Oh well, one song of this kind on a album is somehow good for a violent anticlimax but listening to such songs all the time is a certain headache.

We come to THE MOST OCCULT song on the album, Last dance. Why? Because it sounds like a relaxed, POSTIVE and OPTIMISTIC piano and synth drums ballad with Mikaru sounding like some boyband dude who went on a football match and shouted his voice out so now it's hoarse (but still pretty). This song simply gives you the WARM and FUZZY feeling and it's placed between two most brutal songs I've heard this year. It's like putting Yokan between AGITATED SCREAMS OF MAGGOTS and Reiketsu Nariseba on a Dir en grey live (wait! That's actually more awesome, I'd eat both of my legs to see that). I suppose this is the way Dio makes a joke with us right? RIGHT? (because no normal being would DARE to put a sugary sweet pop ballad in between brutal metal pieces or?)

The last track is Dantoutai wa darega no tame ni yureru which sounds like a directed angry mob with knives slaughter fest would sound. You can simply hear those arteries squitring, blood spraying all over and organs flying all around. Downright awesome. A brutal and violently chatarsic way to end this very good album.

Damn, DICTATOR is simply awesome and a great showreel of the new and old Dio so you can consider it as some Best-of LP by this band. Though with a few downers like the lack of surprise tension due a large number of old songs, some not so well excecuted or memorable parts,  this album still manages to deliver powerful and exciting metal flaired rock pieces (some going as far to be actual real extreme metal) presenting the overall talent of each member (especially Mikaru, his voice is one of the best around!). Overall Dictator was a very enjoyable, metal fused, dark Visual kei album I know I'll return to. Visual metalheads, don't hesitate at this one!