Gazetto, you spoil us..
I woke up today to find my tlist FLIPPING OUT WITH FLAILS and I knew - I just instinctively knew that PV previews were once again among us >:D So, I figured I would make a little post about it, since I seem to be doing that whenever GazettE releases something (and it's fun to discuss happenings with you guys :D).
The album artwork:
I would like to marry this artwork.
After Ruki's teasing tweets about it, I was practically salivating to get my hands on the damn thing, haha! It may be shallow of me to be so concerned with pretty/non-pretty pictures, but I really think album artwork sets the overall tone for what's inside. For example, you can see a looming, ominous gloom in DIM's art while there's a sense of almost streamlined electric with TOXIC.
I adore that you really can't tell what the artwork is going to be based off previous releases - everything is so completely different, from NIL to TOXIC. I didn't know if they were going to go minimalistic like they seemed to do for the word DIVISION's typography (which would have been awesome too), but I really do like the direction they went in. It reminds me of Alice Nine's "GEMINI" with the twins xD But anyways, the colors are gorgeous. The decadent navy and the flash of orange really draw you in and emphasize the twins' "division" amongst themselves (I don't think the 'staff' between them is even needed to get the metaphor xD). Awesome, awesome.
Tracking:
I must make a section for tracking because I'm flailing over how they divided (..pun? :D) the songs on the limited edition based off of "vein" and "artery". It's just another subtle detail that the GazettE always lace into their work that makes me spazz all over my keyboard. The term "binding site" is interesting for the PV section - and the fact that they placed it on the second disk as opposed to the third (i.e. the more traditional order). It just perpetuates the theme of DIVISION - how even the categories of songs are strictly separated. I wonder if the tone itself is going to dramatically shift... It certainly looks that way xD You've got nice, elegant kanji (including Ibitsu) on the first disk and then just a wave of utter CAPSLOCK on the third disk, haha! Rather than a complete switch in levels, I really hope that it's a crescendo - just building, building, rising until GABRIEL ON THE GALLOWS is shaking us by our spines *A*
Kudos to tracking. This band seriously thinks of everything~
PV Preview: Ibitsu
Alright, now to the nitty-gritty meat of things >:D
(and sidenote: it took me forever to figure out there were two PV previews... Gazetto, why is your site like a maze without an end~)
My first impression: Oh god no, don't tell me everything's going to be monochrome D:
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE black and white - LEECH is one of my all time favorite PVs (maybe due to Ruki's perm but shh) - but after getting the beautiful, color wonderfulness of Suicide Circus after the muted tones of SHIVER and RTU (Vortex is in its own category xD), I was really aching to see some flashiness. From the coloring to the song style itself (from what they showed us as they could be fucking teases once again and be revealing only the most 'soft' part of the song OTL), I was immediately reminded of SHIVER. I know~ it's not good to compare, but even when I closed my eyes and just listened, it was that same sort of instrumental/vocal tone. However, it has awesome potential - I could hear the growling of guitars right when it cut off - so I'm not writing Ibitsu off just yet :D
The look was lovely - everyone was sporting awesome hair (YAY for seeing Kai play with his new locks :3). Reita had his leather, Ruki had his suit jacket, Uruha had on.. something that reminds me of LEECH and omg let's keep this, shall we? Aoi had his typical charm and Kai was being amazing as per usual.
It's actually a good idea, in my opinion, to release both a "soft" and "hard" PV - especially given the whole, overall metaphor of "division". Maybe I'm drawing these parallels just from my own wishful-thinking head, but... knowing Ruki... probably not >:3
PV Preview: DERANGEMENT
ASDFHJKL;SDFGHJKL
That pretty much sums it up *A*
I absolutely love this. The colors were so stark and vivid, the beat was insane, and the storyline presented was deliciously intense. I think I've mentioned a dozen times on my LJ that I'm more of a fan towards GazettE's harder songs. And while DERANGEMENT is not the hardest song we've seen (omg just no.. at least not yet), out of the previews, it's definitely got more of a snarl to it. The only thing that I was iffy about, which I think many people are going to mention, was the use of autotune vocoding (thank you, Fii my dear~). It's not even for the fact that it is vocoding - I just believe it was totally unneeded. For VORTEX, I thought that splice of distortion was perfect for the style of the song and I really enjoyed how it was only used sparingly, making it that much more authentic. For DERANGEMENT, given the limited knowledge we have of this song, I don't think this technique is required and I really hope it's not overally featured...
BUT OMG THIS PV LOOKS INTENSE. I was like, "Oh my. OH MY WHAT IS GOING ON HERE." And I have to ask... is that the guy from Suicide Circus? It's probably not, but omg if it was, that would be the most epic continuation ever by connecting those two songs asjdlfdaghagrthy. The slow, languid shots of the woman on the bed (hello there ripped tights) contrasted by the shaking, jolting shots of Ruki is AMAZING. I love that offset so much. And is that blue velvet, Ruki? xDD
And we all know they cut the PV preview right before shit goes insane. FJDLGHDGFGJ SO EXCITED.
The color palette is pretty awesome as well - for me, it's like an echo back to the album artwork. Blue broken up by a more heated hue.
YAY!
Overall:
This gets me really excited, but not enough to buy the album just yet. I'm still too wary of buying another TOXIC and these previews didn't get my mind immediately off that train of thought. But, I know GazettE is harboring the real, holy-shit stuff for the album release and I know that I'm going to be eating my words come August 29th xD
So, what did you guys think? Was it what you expected? Were you disappointed/impressed by the visuals/songs? Which one is your favorite so far? TELL ME EVERYTHING. :DD
The album artwork:
I would like to marry this artwork.
After Ruki's teasing tweets about it, I was practically salivating to get my hands on the damn thing, haha! It may be shallow of me to be so concerned with pretty/non-pretty pictures, but I really think album artwork sets the overall tone for what's inside. For example, you can see a looming, ominous gloom in DIM's art while there's a sense of almost streamlined electric with TOXIC.
I adore that you really can't tell what the artwork is going to be based off previous releases - everything is so completely different, from NIL to TOXIC. I didn't know if they were going to go minimalistic like they seemed to do for the word DIVISION's typography (which would have been awesome too), but I really do like the direction they went in. It reminds me of Alice Nine's "GEMINI" with the twins xD But anyways, the colors are gorgeous. The decadent navy and the flash of orange really draw you in and emphasize the twins' "division" amongst themselves (I don't think the 'staff' between them is even needed to get the metaphor xD). Awesome, awesome.
Tracking:
I must make a section for tracking because I'm flailing over how they divided (..pun? :D) the songs on the limited edition based off of "vein" and "artery". It's just another subtle detail that the GazettE always lace into their work that makes me spazz all over my keyboard. The term "binding site" is interesting for the PV section - and the fact that they placed it on the second disk as opposed to the third (i.e. the more traditional order). It just perpetuates the theme of DIVISION - how even the categories of songs are strictly separated. I wonder if the tone itself is going to dramatically shift... It certainly looks that way xD You've got nice, elegant kanji (including Ibitsu) on the first disk and then just a wave of utter CAPSLOCK on the third disk, haha! Rather than a complete switch in levels, I really hope that it's a crescendo - just building, building, rising until GABRIEL ON THE GALLOWS is shaking us by our spines *A*
Kudos to tracking. This band seriously thinks of everything~
PV Preview: Ibitsu
Alright, now to the nitty-gritty meat of things >:D
(and sidenote: it took me forever to figure out there were two PV previews... Gazetto, why is your site like a maze without an end~)
My first impression: Oh god no, don't tell me everything's going to be monochrome D:
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE black and white - LEECH is one of my all time favorite PVs (maybe due to Ruki's perm but shh) - but after getting the beautiful, color wonderfulness of Suicide Circus after the muted tones of SHIVER and RTU (Vortex is in its own category xD), I was really aching to see some flashiness. From the coloring to the song style itself (from what they showed us as they could be fucking teases once again and be revealing only the most 'soft' part of the song OTL), I was immediately reminded of SHIVER. I know~ it's not good to compare, but even when I closed my eyes and just listened, it was that same sort of instrumental/vocal tone. However, it has awesome potential - I could hear the growling of guitars right when it cut off - so I'm not writing Ibitsu off just yet :D
The look was lovely - everyone was sporting awesome hair (YAY for seeing Kai play with his new locks :3). Reita had his leather, Ruki had his suit jacket, Uruha had on.. something that reminds me of LEECH and omg let's keep this, shall we? Aoi had his typical charm and Kai was being amazing as per usual.
It's actually a good idea, in my opinion, to release both a "soft" and "hard" PV - especially given the whole, overall metaphor of "division". Maybe I'm drawing these parallels just from my own wishful-thinking head, but... knowing Ruki... probably not >:3
PV Preview: DERANGEMENT
ASDFHJKL;SDFGHJKL
That pretty much sums it up *A*
I absolutely love this. The colors were so stark and vivid, the beat was insane, and the storyline presented was deliciously intense. I think I've mentioned a dozen times on my LJ that I'm more of a fan towards GazettE's harder songs. And while DERANGEMENT is not the hardest song we've seen (omg just no.. at least not yet), out of the previews, it's definitely got more of a snarl to it. The only thing that I was iffy about, which I think many people are going to mention, was the use of autotune vocoding (thank you, Fii my dear~). It's not even for the fact that it is vocoding - I just believe it was totally unneeded. For VORTEX, I thought that splice of distortion was perfect for the style of the song and I really enjoyed how it was only used sparingly, making it that much more authentic. For DERANGEMENT, given the limited knowledge we have of this song, I don't think this technique is required and I really hope it's not overally featured...
BUT OMG THIS PV LOOKS INTENSE. I was like, "Oh my. OH MY WHAT IS GOING ON HERE." And I have to ask... is that the guy from Suicide Circus? It's probably not, but omg if it was, that would be the most epic continuation ever by connecting those two songs asjdlfdaghagrthy. The slow, languid shots of the woman on the bed (hello there ripped tights) contrasted by the shaking, jolting shots of Ruki is AMAZING. I love that offset so much. And is that blue velvet, Ruki? xDD
And we all know they cut the PV preview right before shit goes insane. FJDLGHDGFGJ SO EXCITED.
The color palette is pretty awesome as well - for me, it's like an echo back to the album artwork. Blue broken up by a more heated hue.
YAY!
Overall:
This gets me really excited, but not enough to buy the album just yet. I'm still too wary of buying another TOXIC and these previews didn't get my mind immediately off that train of thought. But, I know GazettE is harboring the real, holy-shit stuff for the album release and I know that I'm going to be eating my words come August 29th xD
So, what did you guys think? Was it what you expected? Were you disappointed/impressed by the visuals/songs? Which one is your favorite so far? TELL ME EVERYTHING. :DD