Dir en grey - The Marrow of a Bone (review thingie)
Okay, so I'm listening to the new Dir en grey album for the 3rd time now, surprisingly I had a few changes of opinion upon getting here, from the very first time I started listening to it. So let's see, my mindlessly subjective journey into the realms of icky ugly dark stuff that is The Marrow, haha. XD
First song is Conceived Sorrow, a quietly and hauntingly beginning track, strange uneasy sound effects, piano and all. It soon becomes thicker with the arrival of the guitars and bass, Kyo's kinda okay here. Personally I hardly believed he would survive the recording seeing his performances onstage, lol. Song's nice and everything, a bit weird for an opening track imho, but still okay.
Next up is Lie Buried with a Vengeance, nooow~ we're talkin'! ;D Sweet heavy guitars, unbelievable gurgling and screaming, including Kyo's new "10 year-old girl screams". To top it off, everlasting words of wisdom come out of our beloved vocalist's mouth, something along the lines of "fxck fxck fxck fxck oogah boogah boogah". Lovin' it. XDDD
Then comes The Fatal Believer, another ruthless track, but this time we get a little taste of Kyo's clear singing again in the chorus. Not bad at all (a little forced thought, imho). Awesome growls again, instruments are top-notch, I really like that quiet bass-and-vocal-only part that goes for a few moments. The guitars are really sweet again. So far so good.
Agitated Screams of Maggots fits the atmosphere of the previous track very well, continuing the anger-gushing-wraar-wraar stuff. Well, we heard it all before, I personally can't find any difference between this one and the single version. Oh well, it's good for one track.
Okay, Grief is totally my favourite on here! It's just the sickest but still one of the catchiest-sounding Diru songs ever, for me. The furious battle between Kyo's screams and the others' backing shouts is amazing. Then we get a taste of a weird floating-kinda-feeling, saturated soon with Kyo's sickness. Again, brilliant, I love it to bits!! And those disturbing high-pitched shrieks again!
Again, a song we've come to know by now, Ryojoku no ame. It surely has been re-recorded, although I heard the original one such a long time ago, I can't really make a difference between the two now. I like the rolling guitars at the verses. In the chorus the instruments slow down and Kyo goes all emotional, aaw. Then weird electronic chirps and stuff, wtf. XD And screaming. They don't really need that here, but oh well. Haha, that guitar part right after the screaming makes me think: "KoRn, you've been robbed, ha!" XDDD Seriously, it's just too noticeably similar to the guitar stuff KoRn's musicians come up with. Oh well, but good song, not my favourite here though. And it ends kinda suddenly.
Now comes Disabled Complexes, whose sample I was sceptical with at first, and even with the song itself on first listen but I have a feeling it's beginning to grow on me. It starts out nice 'n' easy-sleazy, just this cool far-out jamming stuff. Reminds me a little bit of the beginning of Jesus Christ R'n'R. But then comes the heaviness again. Oh yes, the heaviness is your friend. Mine, at least, lol. Somehow it manages to pull off a cool progress into heavy and twisted territory from subtlety better than Dead Tree, imho of course. Strangely, apart from this aspect, I don't really have any special feelings towards this song yet. Oh yeah, Kyo sounds like he's repeatedly singing "psycho tuna" at the end, but that's nothing new, lmao.
Rotting Root. Oh, the hate and sadness that could've spawned this scornful song title, lol lol. Nice alliteration though. :D I totally didn't like this song at first but now I kidna lvoe it pretty much, haha, weird. XD The main melody (which is repeated a lot, and I mean A LOT) is like something I'd expect from...like...a doom band, lol, but definitely not Dir en grey. But very very good try at something fresh-sounding. Kyo isn't really standing out here, but that's a plus point for him here, haha. The screams at the end are a bit too much and over-the-top imho though.
And here she is. The one. Dir en grey are kinda infamous (since WtD that is) for having at least one quiet slowish song, and whose title must be like over 20 syllables and must contain one comma, lmao. XDDD For your sanity and my convenience (yeah right, call me lazy! lol) I'm not typing the whole title here, lol. The song is kinda nice, nothing too memorable, but nice, melodic, and Kyo's singing seems less forced here than in other places before. Nice. The guitars are VERY pretty. (*-* ) Oh yeah, Kyo can't leave out the compulsory scream, nice job Buckethead lol.
The Pledge is all sorts of sick beauty in electric coating, very peaceful yet strong and point-making at the same time. The chorus is just...haunting. Extremely eerie and beautiful, just as the whole song.
Next is Repetition of Hatred, fitting title, lol. Nice guitar to-and-fro playing in the first verse. Then creepiness and stuff. Then anger anger scream scream growl growl. I really love the outro guitars, just so much power in them. A pretty average song, but still better than like Maggots for example.
The Deeper Vileness. Hoo, boy. The beginning I'd die for, not so much what comes after. I thought it would be a bit better. But it wasn't, lol. XD ...Oh well, but my only positive comment about this song: how it leads into the album closer. I love it. The grainy crunchy dissolved, rotting of sound itself.
Then, bang, Clever Sleazoid, re-recorded and angrier than ever (whatever, something like that, lol)!! I kinda like this version a tiny bit more than the single version. The screamsn and growls are just out of this world. he best closing track I could think of for this album.
Vile, dark, slimey, violent, just the great album for me. Prolly not the average non-metal listener though. Okay, just so there is some kind of ranking: 7/10. Yayz. XD