6 posts tagged “ギルガメッシュ”
Release date: 10.6.2009.
Track list:
1. ALIVE
2. GAMBLE
So Girugämesh introduce us with their first single of the year, the new release after their last year's third album MUSIC.
ALIVE is an uptempo, grumbling, powerful metal-rock anthem with earthquake riff attacks, pumping bass-lines and soaring chorus. Mix all the ingredients, add a bit of scratching and you'll get every other great Girugämesh rock hit. Th only thing I hear as an improvement from the usual pattern is the metal rhythm-like drumming by Ryo which give an additional punch to the song. You love Girugämesh for songs like this one, and you'll certainly won't love them less for ALIVE.
GAMBLE goes on the harder track with a whirlwind of distorsion blasts, drum outbreaks and sinister bass. Satoshi takes the lower, vicious registers to bring out a certain, surpressed anger which simply explodes on a growl-mosh chorus explosion. And again you won't find anything new here, just the good combination of songs such as Patchwork, Volcano and similar.
So yeah more-less ALIVE is a sniper sure-shot of a single, bringing all the characteristic and loved elements this band offers combined in two pretty decent songs. Most likely it's kind of a redemption single for the last years pretty experimental and more risky album which didn't quite hit all the expectations from a lot of their fans. Oh well, better to stick with the confirmed, good-old winning recepie than going into the unknown, at least that's Girugämesh's philosophy on this single and I'm certain the fans will not mind it.
Because ALIVE is a true showcase of this band you can reccomend it to a potential new-fan without fear.
Track list
1. -INTRO-
2. Break Down [PV]
3. ULTIMATE 4
4. FREAKS
5. アングリージュース (Angry Juice)
6. evolution
7. -INST.-
8. puzzle
9. Asking why
10. DEAD WORLD
11. イシュタル (Ishtar)
12. 縁enishi
Almost a year passed since the release of Girugämesh's second album Girugamesh and it was a release-less period up to the new, third album with the harmless title MUSIC.
And by the very moment you hear the major key-d, happy pop chorus to the what initially starts as a typical Girugämesh grinding rock song Break Down you will know that this album is not to be taken (too) serious. Any seriousness and profoundness taken will result in immediate disappointment. Because Girugämesh are here on MUSIC to have (mostly) fun and not to deliver songs for thinking. If you accept that, you will enjoy this album.
The album blasts in the fun first half with energy pumped songs, spiced with a new and interesting electro touch to it, refreshing and widthening the pretty closed sound range Girugämesh had. ULTIMATE 4 blasts with a loud and bashing chorus, simple and yet quaking riffs and sparkling electro touches making ULTIMATE 4 (if you haven't gotten it, ULTIMATE 4 = Satoshi, Shuu, Nii and Ryo) one of their most powerful tunes which will make you headbang to the very end. And FREAKS breaks out in a underground buzzing guitar tension mixed up with their commmon loud and distorted riffs and a violent chorus bombing us with shouts! The switches to a jumpy and stylish part in the middle and returns back to the loud'n'violent old self. Angry Juice steams up the rock dancefloors with a typical Disco-metal piece in a Girugämesh manner just like Shoujo A and Dance Rock Night, but less tame.
The rock-party part closes with evolution, one of the most experimental and unusual Girugämesh's songs ever. Inducting a big WTF face right at the start due to squealy, girly backvocals blended with Satoshi's voice makes you have a Oshare kei flashback, but the electro pumped earthquake of riffs return to reality. evolution could have been an excellent and fun song if it wasn't for the horribly uninspired, uninterested and unintense chorus being a certain headshot for this song.
The loungy 2nd instrumental alonsides -INTRO- -INST.- marks the clear passage to the well... serious (read: now you can start bitching about the shortness and repetitivness) part of the album. puzzle continues straight from -INST.- with some streched out strings in the back, synth drums (I'd be major offended if I was Ryo) and Satoshi's floating voice over the glimmering pre-chorus and the intense, slightly unoriginal but yet pretty chorus. Puzzle does make a pretty stand-out but the song is simply too short to make a decent mood and to dive into and is abrubtly ended to really register it. Asking why may seem as one of those serious, powerful rock pieces Girugamesh have done already a lot of times (side: If I didn't know it was Satoshi I'd say that Miyavi is the one singing the verses) but the intense chorus, pumped up to a monsterous scale thanks to the electric organ in the background. Nice, but that still doesn't make up for the crappy rap verses.
DEAD WORLD brings back the certain dance-floor touch mixed with a blast of Nii's characteristic powerful riffs. Yet this is one of the most unmemorable tracks on the entire album because it serves already everything we have heard, even if it explodes on every second, it's like a flashy New Years firework in the middle of hundreds of them. Ishtar calms down the atmosphere with a very r'n'b sounding piano parts blended with Satoshi's strong yet pretty voice, a nice ballad with a decent chorus, but that's about it.
The album is lifted up again with Enishi, probably the only true jewel in this album alongsides ULTIMATE 4. The song opens with familiar funky riffs and a groovy yet melancholic verses building up to the brilliant pre-chorus (God damn why haven't they've done the whole song like it) boosted by Shuu's excellent bass lines. The chorus is powerful like every Girugämesh song and the melancholic touch gives another excellent finishing touch to the entire song. Though it may not so spectacular on the first listen it gets better with every other. A great closing to a not so great album.
Clearly MUSIC is the weakest Girugämesh album up to date even with all of their experimenting this album won't surpass the excellent debut one 13's reborn and the hard but weaker Girugamesh. But the album entierly doesn't really lag too much behind if you look at it as a great Rock-party soundtrack delivering songs that will surely put the crowds into dellirium on live performance. If you don't then you will be dissapointed by the repetition, laughably simple riffs on some parts, mostly synth drums, uninspired choruses and really wierd musical solutions nailed fully with a runtime of 35 minutes! It's like Girugämesh weren't able to make songs longer than three minutes! But, on the other hand, the shortness factor may be a certain plus since the songs are generally too short to suck and you can listen to the album over and over: whether on your way from home to school (just the right lenght for my average bus/tram-ride) or just wanting to have a short listening pause somewhere.
As I have said this album may be somewhat rewarding if you don't take it seriously, but as a loud and fun soundtrack for your Rock party or everyday rockin' life.
Yeah I admit I am feeling posting-happy so look forward for me posting stupid but still entertaining posts X).
I simply love what interesting things you can find browsing around Livejournal and other forums/blogs/whatever where hordes of Visual kei fans get together and share interesting things. I am also continuing the series of before/after posts I have started and that Heroin(e) has continued with an excellent post about GazettE's Aoi and Kai's previous bands.
Today I will literally unmask the beautiful visage of famous Visual kei artists and show their normal, human side. No make up allowed. Are you ready?
So yeah, as much as I love Girugämesh I must admit that when I first saw them in their Visuals (not without the make up) that I said to myself Whoa! These guys are reaaaaaal ugly! Poor guys... If I am ever going to listen to them it definitely won't be because of the appearance. Yeah unfortunately Girugämesh is really one of the ugliest bands around (although charming in a way), but at least they look very much like themselves without the make-up even more than some other Visual kei artists.
Next are D'espairsRay!
D'espairsRay always had this great Visuals and they always looked really good, starting from their extreme dark Visuals from the start of their career up to nowadays with a bit watered down, but still very stylish Visuals. The guys look mostly like they do in real life nowadays because they don't use a lot of make up and are going for a more natural style.
So first of all let's take a peek at singer Hizumi and bassist Zero.
My jaw dropped when I saw Aoi's picture from the recent MacPeople magazine. He wasn't wearing any makeup and he really looked older than usual (which shouldn't surprise since he is 29 years old). In a way he reminded me from somebody from LUNA SEA (Sugizo or Inoran? Not sure) in a way because he looks really mature and like a real adult.
What is the most shocking about this picture is that it shows everything Visual Uruha isn't: a rough, not handsome Japanese MAN. He looks soo manly it's almost scary and impossible to believe. The Beast behind the Beauty.
The moral of the joke: We (women) have to achieve perfection with makeup. So hypothetically speaking what if men, who are already perfect by themselves, would use our means of achieving visual perfection (or makeup)? Does that make them more than perfect according to the joke? A little bit of truth is in that joke actually.God was creating the world. God created the man and said rapturously: Oh you are so perfect!
Then god created the woman and said a bit less rapturously: Listen, you will have to put makeup.
So with makeup or without, pretty or ugly, we all love our favorite Visual kei rockers. As long as they make good music that makes our days exciting the Visuals really don't matter. The true beauty comes from inside :).
Date released: 26.12.2006.
Track list
1. Intro
2. patchwork
3. Vermillion [PV]
4. stupid
5. バリケード (Barricade)
6. shining
7. 白い足跡 (Shiroi ashiato)
8. CRAZY-FLAG
9. 「少女A」([Shoujo A])
10. ROCKER’S
11. Dance Rock Night
12. ドミノ (Domino)
13. 壊れていく世界 (Kowarete iku sekai) [PV]
Girugämesh deliver a second, self titled, album. This time, armed with a big budget (that left no money left for the Kowarete iku sekai PV), ambitious ideas and the hand of guidance of MUCC's guitarist Miya (responsible for the up to the top production) the four Girugämesh boys rushed into the recording studios to make a new album...
Unfortunately the kick start didn't help them. The first half of the album is a mix of neck-breaking, distorted-guitars-fast-drumming-and-non-existent-bass moshing orgies starting off with the Volcano ripoff patchwork and going to the unoriginal Barricade. I would like to see the idiot who put five growling, vocal fold killing, high distorted songs IN A ROW at the BEGINNING of the album.
The first half of the album is good if you want to annoy your neighbors with some loud nu-metal stuff, but even they will find it boring and repetitive after two songs.
The situation gets a bit better starting off with shining and delivers a row of solid songs with a great refrain (but sucky verses and bridges) which reaches it's peak with the probably best song on the album [Shoujo A]. It's a great song that combines dancey disco beat with some nasty, dirty nu-metal sound. All together it sounds excellent and original. Another try to deliver a heavy rock song onto the dance floors is Dance Rock Night, flavored with some nice funky guitarwork, but not near the brilliancy of [Shoujo A] (hey they even got two songs that feature ROCK in them, we haven't seen that in some J-rock release since Miyavi).
Domino is just a warm-up song for the most ambitious Girugämesh song ever Kowarete iku sekai. The song features some nice acoustic guitars, typical for an epic J-rock ballad strings and some intense, emotional vocals. The song has got a great concept, but a bad realization. The first half of the song is as transparent as your average kitchen food-packing foil, bursts out in a loud mash of everything in the middle and is majorly spoiled by Satoshi trying to sound desperate, but ending sounding like your average heart-broken drunkyard singing in the middle of the night in front of some building. Or like he has a heavy dysentery....
Yes I am disappointed by this album, not a lot but quite. It does have some great songs, but most of them are just boring, uninspired and unoriginal. If you dig western nu-metal/metalcore sound you might as well give this album a listen (also if you are already a fan of Girugämesh). This album has got some good ideas, but they are all realized badly and it suffers from the repetitive heavy sound a lot of Visual kei bands make recently. I must admit when it comes to heavy-with-emotion, Dir en grey is definitely better, but Girugämesh are heavy-with-style.
Want some heavy mostly brainless nu-metal goodness? Get this album!
As you all know the school will start soon and everybody needs to get prepared for school, right? Besides books, notebooks, pencils, pens etc... one of the essential school accessories is a pen case (or whatever it is called on English).
I present you.... My Visual kei pen case!!!
So the sewing went pretty well even if my sewing technique was awful. My mom laughed when she saw the way I saw the logos but was also fascinated by how good I made the logos (Even though she doesn't like Visual kei).
I did had some troubles with sewing but it went well. The strange thing was the fact that the simpler the logo the harder it was to sew it! Really!!!
This is the back of my pen case! I had the most work with it but I like it! Maybe more than the front side because the logos came out really well.
The back of the pen case had logos of bands Girugämesh, D'espairsRay, alice nine. and Kagrra,. These logos really looked cool and even when they were sketches they seemed really awesome! Now once they are sewn in they rock!
I can't decide which logo is the coolest on the behind because they all look pretty good, but I think the D'espairsRay logo came out the most authentic.
But all in all it came out really, reallly, goooooooood!! And it wasn't so hard to do it. If I , who have got extreme trembling hands and suck at any hand job imaginable, have done it then everybody can do it! All you need is a needle, some thread, free time and good ideas.
I bet you all could do it better than me!
Date released: 18.7.2007.
Tracklist
1. Real my place
2. crime-罪- (crime-tsumi-)
3. smash!!
4. Melody
5. フリージア (fressia)
6. お前に捧げる醜い声 (Omae ni sasageru minikui koe)
Girugämesh was one of the bands that I was surprised by when I listened to them for the first time. They really sound different than the most Visual kei bands, and that unique sound is on of the strong points of this talented band.
Real my place is an energetic nu-metal song with a very interesting blend of piano and heavy guitar riffs, gentle singing and growling. In a way this song reminded me of the song THE LAST EMPIRE by alice nine. because of the light movement in the song and gradually increasing energy.
crime-tsumi- reminds a lot on the recent GazettE track such as AGONY, BURIAL APPLICANT and CIRCLE OF SWINDLER. Even if the song has a gentle almost pop intro that repeats on several places in the song it still remains a hardcore song with it's hard riffs, interesting rapping and refrain all sang perfectly by the vocal Satoshi.
I think the title of the song smash!! says a lot about it. A lot of growling, fast, upbeat, headbanging goodness that mostly reminds on the song Mouja no Koushin from the album 13's reborn.
Melody that follows is a solid ballad and pretty melodic but not especially original and reminds a lot on the melancholic songs from the 13's reborn album.
Fressia is also a ballad, but quite an interesting one. Satoshi manages to add a lot of emotion in the song with his singing, whispering and almost near crying. The song has got a nice balance between calm and strong and as such counts to one of the highlights of the mini-album.
The additional song Omae ni sasageru minikui koe is an average hard'n'heavy Girugämesh song with a lot of growling, yelling, aggressive sound, distorted guitar and deep bass. Not very catchy but good enough to please any Girugämesh fan.
So overall this is a great release. Girugämesh fans and fans of hardcore and nu-metal sound will be pleased, but my greatest complaint to the album is the lack of originality. All the songs are pretty similar to former Girugämesh releases and the sound range is pretty much limited. They band has got talent and I think they should experiment more.
In any case this is a release worth listening.
My Groups
-
J-Rock Fans Updated: 6 days ago
-
J-rock music reviews (host) Updated: Oct 19, 2009
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
