Thoughts on Dir en Grey's new album?

[letter]

For those of you who have listened to Dir en Grey's newest album, DUM SPIRO SPERO, what are your thoughts? Do you like it? Are you disappointed?

[susiowong]

I think today is the US's release date and I was e-mailed a link from the Omega Order to download the album. I wanted to wait and hear it once I got a physical copy but I gave in to temptation and listened. >>; Ah well.



The feeling of ancientness and evil is definitely present.

First of all, Hageshisa is much improved, which I'm impressed with because I loved the single. And VANITAS almost made me cry.

I'm also intrigued by Kyo's vocals on this album; I really like how much he experiments with them, like in AMON and THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB. And Yokusou Ni DREAMBOX is just intense.

As somebody has stated in another thread, the album seems predictable. I agree there is similarity between many songs (the atmosphere?, the sound of each song?), but each of them still stood out to me. As I've stated previously, I guess we should've expected that because they went with a "core sound" for the album. Personally, I'd like to see them span out as they've done in past albums, but I still enjoyed the songs.

Kaoru stated the singles are the most easily listenable, a questionable statement because there are many levels to each single. But... he's absolutely right. The rest of the album is hard to comprehend at times because there are so, so many layers... Sometimes it seems like this entire album is a concession of explosions and madness. But I find it all the more captivating.

tl;dr This is no Uroboros but I'm still amazed by it. In fact, it's contesting with Uroboros as my favorite album.


edit: I wish I could change my initial choice of 8 to a 10.

[Daggi_X]

I rated it a "4" because I couldn't really stand listening through the whole thing

Making complex music is one thing, but some of the songs were just unbearable.
There were only few good tracks on this release.