6.1 NACHTMYSTIUM * ASSASSINS: BLACK MEDDLE PART 1 (Century Media)6.2 DIR EN GREY * UROBOROS (The End)
I remember standing around drinking with music biz publicists (and an agent) like 10 years ago, suffering through their wheezy litanies about the future of record sales. They took turns droning about internet-based promotion and a leveling of the playing field in which creativity and boldness would no longer be rewarded with obscurity. With the internet, good music would bubble to the top of the brew, chart presence or not. The megaphone now belonged to each record buyer. Ironically, their whole internet-as-noise-machine speech was a doomsday thing; to me, the industry guys always sounded unsubtly scared for their jobs. To a music journalist frustrated at the astounding dollars being thrown around to back the shittiest of shit bands (Crazytown leaps to mind sorry Sergeant D), any change sounded like good news. And this was before file sharing so yeah we had no fucking idea!
Now I'm no expert, but we all have Spidey senses and mine tell me that as 2008 draws to an overdue close (eat shit, George Bush Jr.), we, the Metal listeners, are starting to reap the fruits of the traditional music industry's collapse. To wit, Nachtmystium and their trance-metal masterpiece Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1. Judging from the riotous acclaim on tastemaking metal sites, I was unsurprised at the packed house for the Chicago quartet's opening slot on the Boris/Torche tour. My point is muddy here, but Assassins could never be viewed as a marketable album: too psych for kvltists, too many black metalisms for anyone else, as if either genre posts hearty sales numbers anyway. Assassins would've suffered -- possibly disappeared -- back in 1998 without the deserving patronage of MetalSucks et al. But the record is awesome, and mission accomplished: a shit ton of people at least got to the show on time to see its authors. Shit, the guy from my supermarket's customer service desk was there. (Torche ripped; Boris, well, bored us. WHOOO!)
Sorry for all the blathering but yeah it seems that it's no longer as dangerous to be quote unquote out there, to expand on established tropes and create a truly singular record: in this case, a droning, technicolor Pink Floyd tribute by misanthropic black metallists with no aversion to the odd piano tinkling or gulp saxophone.
Likewise, it's no longer a death sentence to be from a non-English speaking country, like Japan's Dir en grey. Japanese lyricists don't really pick up English smoothly (like, say, Europeans), so the choice is to either stick with their native language or sound like a retarded second-grader. Deg does the former, which pretty much dooms them to obscurity outside of Japan. Well, that and the fucking outfits. But as one after another J-Pop idols have flopped spectacularly in their half-hearted stateside campaigns (hey, there's no market demand for additional dickless pop singers -- we have plenty duhhh), Deg's juice with US listeners originates in their ability to provide a new and exotic product: post-Korn new wave death-rock wailcore. In Japanese.
Sure, singer Kyo needs to put on a goddamn shirt and stop writhing like a cracked-out Whitney Houston. And I for one am glad he almost always opts not to attempt English; he is on some ridiculous shit most of the time, like Simon Le Bon as a Hostel victim. But since Deg jettisoned their visual kei argle-bargle, they've cultivated a monster live show, and cranked out two killer records and two classics, like this year's sprawling, cacophonous Uroboros. Without the potential awareness-spreading tool that is the internet, it's unlikely that a major unit would manage Deg, landing them prime Family Values and Taste Of Chaos slots and direct support on a euphoric Deftones tour. And it's not just the language barrier; their shit is bananas.
Now I'm no expert, but we all have Spidey senses and mine tell me that as 2008 draws to an overdue close (eat shit, George Bush Jr.), we, the Metal listeners, are starting to reap the fruits of the traditional music industry's collapse. To wit, Nachtmystium and their trance-metal masterpiece Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1. Judging from the riotous acclaim on tastemaking metal sites, I was unsurprised at the packed house for the Chicago quartet's opening slot on the Boris/Torche tour. My point is muddy here, but Assassins could never be viewed as a marketable album: too psych for kvltists, too many black metalisms for anyone else, as if either genre posts hearty sales numbers anyway. Assassins would've suffered -- possibly disappeared -- back in 1998 without the deserving patronage of MetalSucks et al. But the record is awesome, and mission accomplished: a shit ton of people at least got to the show on time to see its authors. Shit, the guy from my supermarket's customer service desk was there. (Torche ripped; Boris, well, bored us. WHOOO!)
Sorry for all the blathering but yeah it seems that it's no longer as dangerous to be quote unquote out there, to expand on established tropes and create a truly singular record: in this case, a droning, technicolor Pink Floyd tribute by misanthropic black metallists with no aversion to the odd piano tinkling or gulp saxophone.
Likewise, it's no longer a death sentence to be from a non-English speaking country, like Japan's Dir en grey. Japanese lyricists don't really pick up English smoothly (like, say, Europeans), so the choice is to either stick with their native language or sound like a retarded second-grader. Deg does the former, which pretty much dooms them to obscurity outside of Japan. Well, that and the fucking outfits. But as one after another J-Pop idols have flopped spectacularly in their half-hearted stateside campaigns (hey, there's no market demand for additional dickless pop singers -- we have plenty duhhh), Deg's juice with US listeners originates in their ability to provide a new and exotic product: post-Korn new wave death-rock wailcore. In Japanese.
Sure, singer Kyo needs to put on a goddamn shirt and stop writhing like a cracked-out Whitney Houston. And I for one am glad he almost always opts not to attempt English; he is on some ridiculous shit most of the time, like Simon Le Bon as a Hostel victim. But since Deg jettisoned their visual kei argle-bargle, they've cultivated a monster live show, and cranked out two killer records and two classics, like this year's sprawling, cacophonous Uroboros. Without the potential awareness-spreading tool that is the internet, it's unlikely that a major unit would manage Deg, landing them prime Family Values and Taste Of Chaos slots and direct support on a euphoric Deftones tour. And it's not just the language barrier; their shit is bananas.
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