Style
(Luna Sea) -- My favorite album of theirs... finally, a legal copy
to call my own! And with a painted case that implies first-pressing-ness,
hehe... and only Y600! Of course, it smells like a diarhetic elephant's
toilet, and has actual burn marks on it (like it was pulled form
a burning car wreck moments before it exploded?!), but that makes
it even more "unique"!
Gravity
(Luna Sea) -- A cool single; Inside You and My Lover
are a couple of very cool, rockin' bonus tracks, although the latter
song is a bit too reminiscent of In Future. I saw this disc
and got it for Y350, then saw it at the next store for one -tenth-
the price. I -hate- that!
Love
Song (Luna Sea) -- An okay tune, but it'll never be as good
as I For You. Into the Sun kicks, Until the Day
I Die plods, but not in a cool heavy way, unfortunately. Y30
only! That's what -I- call "The Nice Price"!
Tonight
(Luna Sea) -- Tonight is a fun tune, but the b-sides
(Be Gone and Be In Agony) don't measure up. They're
good, but just, eh, not worth much more than the Y30 I paid for
the disc. :)
Storm
(Luna Sea) -- Cool b-side for 50 cents, Kono Sekai no <unknown
kanji>-dete.
Shine
(Luna Sea) -- Looper, the b-side, is kinda cool, in a studio
tricks kind-of-way.
No
Sticks (Shinya) -- Ah, with No Sticks, Luna Sea's
drummer has put forth a powerful pop masterpiece -- if by "masterpiece"
you mean "poop". Ugh, what a crappy "album"!
The first three tracks had absolutely nothing memorable whatsoever,
musically or otherwise, and by the end of track four I could take
no more. Filth! Y300, squandered! <throws imaginary coins into
the trash>. I have now been disappointed by Ryuichi, Sugizo,
J, and Shinya: "Help me, Inoran, you're my only hope!"
<Kanji>
ni <kanji> Ame (Rouage) -- I hate being illiterate
and not knowing song titles! And now, I also hate Rouage! Back in
'96, they were quite the goth-meisters. Now they're in silver suits
-- how trendy -- but still doing playing subpar material. The production,
however, is gorgeous -- the ringing guitars and solid drums sound
really inviting. But the songwriting's missing something... there's
just some magic that ain't happening, which can be a very frustrating
thing, and there's nothing one can do about it. Except suck. Y30.
Prayer
(Luca) -- Never heard them, only saw 'em in magazines from time-to-time.
Prayer is ballady in a bad way, Click Down (track
2) is heavy and fast with some techno flare. Worth the Y30, barely.
(I wonder if the guy at the store meant to mark these singles -Y300-?!
Oh well!)
Lime
Rain (La'cryma Christi) -- Last of the Y30 singles, and
possibly the best, aside from the Luna Sea single for Gravity.
I hadn't heard much from these guys, but I like what I'm hearing
now... and I guess that that one guitarist (Hiro?) isn't as much
of a Hide-clone as I had him pegged for (have you -seen- him?! It's
like, "Dude, get your own style, dammit!) Fascism, the
b-side, is also pretty cool. Nice guitar work. The rhythm section's
a bit unimaginitive, but I'll definitely be checking out more La'cryma
Christi soon. (They had a lot of used videos on sale for cheap,
too -- though not as many as Penicillin, who are totally on the
outs, like Shanza was last year, with a million used discs all collecting
dust on the shelves, never to be heard again.
