I have accumulated many personal reviews while listening to albums. My reviewing style is non-conventional and was only intended for myself. Sometimes I will only use one sentence to describe an album if I feel that is all that's required. Other times I will review an album while I'm still listening to it, leading to a song-by-song review of the album (bringing the size of the review to nearly dissertation-level). There are times when I will even come back to a review to add information that I didn't know when originally writing the review. The point is that I won't edit my reviews to make them more readable or conventional. My reviews are always a direct result of what I was feeling when I wrote them and I want to let that feeling come through.



Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Dir en grey - 鬼葬 [2002]

Calm and ominous beginning in "鬼眼 -kigan-" before the shit breaks loose into a rocky thrash section. This feels much more raw than the previous couple of albums. "ZOMBOID" has a punky thrash feel to it. Good energy. "24個シリンダー" is a bit schizo with more sedated and darker guitaring and a build up to spastic vocals. A bit repetitive, though. "FILTH" isn't particularly catchy, but it's a quirky song that's fun to listen to. "Bottom of the death valley" is a bit more catchy. Another one with a more sedated feel. Luckily, there's a bit of variation, which is really a necessity on an album that is this long. Just before the middle of the album, a more electronic sensibility is introduced into the song writing. It also feels like the guitaring gets a little heavier. There's a bit more creativity on this one than there was on Macabre. The songs have more solid writing overall, too. Really not a fan of the chorus vocals in "蟲 -mushi-"... they basically ruin the song by wreaking of trying-too-hard. So, overall it's a mixed bag. There are some really good songs, and some pretty weak ones. However, the effort to push the creativity is there.

Rating: 7.75

http://www.direngrey.co.jp/

All ratings are out of 10. Rating may not be a whole number.

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