Missing Dir En Grey for the THIRD TIME.

The first time I came into contact with Dir En Grey was in 2010, when a friend asked if I wanted to go to their gig at Koko in London. At that time I didn't really know them and so I politely declined.

As you may or may not know, I am a HUGE fan of Dir En Grey, but my much-delayed border-line obsession with their music only begun in August 2011, right after their second gig at Koko in London. I was kind of annoyed I had missed them again but I figured that they would be back.

And now as I write this rather pointless and pathetic (in the truest sense) post, I am missing them yet again in 2013 whilst they play at Download Festival. Even though it would only be a 1/2 hour set, words cannot describe how badly I want to see this band.

I just hope that they'll do their usual August Koko gig...

Maximum The Hormone New Song + Album Announcement

HURRAH! After six years (of no albums) MTH are back, with new material. 

They released their new music video 'alien' through a frustratingly time-consuming campaign released 02/06/13 which involved clicking on tons of clicks to find the 'Atari' (correct) link. 

The song 'Alien' is probably one of the craziest MTH songs, yet weirdly one of the most accessible. The first half sounds almost like a mess, kept in line through Ryō and Daisuke-Han's vocals and there are breakdowns (incredibly heavy ones) galore. The lyrics are as weird as ever, referencing Jedis at one point. The first half closes with a much-missed slap part from Ue-chan. The music video shows them playing to an audience. 

Now, MTH are known for their unique mixture of hardcore and j-pop influenced music. HOWEVER it would be safe to say that the second half of this 'Alien' is one of the most j-pop choruses to come from MTH. The music video also changes, showing an blond anime princess while the drummer Nao takes over, singing the word 'Alien' in her most teen-idol way possible. It's almost like a lullaby. The song then progresses into a huge sing-along of 'Winny stop' (Winny is a p2p site in Japan), with the band playing on stage as if on a Japanese music show. This theme is further continued when the whole video ends with MTH logo shown in the style of the NHK logo. 

Finally the video ends in classic MTH style with an joke-y argument between Nao and Daisuke-Han on 'Winny'. 

A new album was also announced, for a release on 31st of July 2013, with 15 new songs!!