...the reverse side of beauty..//..Mantified

I admit, SUGIZO's latest single Missing Link isn't exactly new news, but given he's made a massive update about his work in his MySpace blog, I feel (somewhat) compelled to make a sort of commentary here. Hahaha.

Missing Link is actually composed to aid Mick Karn for his cancer treatment. I normally wouldn't pay that much for just 1 song (without CDs/booklets and all that environmentally unfriendly packaging), but because I support the cancer cause, I've donated 10 quid to buying the single. It starts off with quite an airy feel, but when the trademark SUGIZO style dance music started after around 1:30 minutes, it just got better. And of course, his violin playing mixed with dance music does give the piece a new age style breath into the piece. It flows smoothly, without hearing weird noises that some people would put in to make it sound "cool". I think it must be the violin...it's the violin I say! It's one more (good) techno song to add to my collection! Personally, I'm not really a fan of techno because it's really horrible electronica music most of the time - but SUGIZO knows how to make it sound the way it should: makes you want to pump up the dance floor.

To get your own copy and to help Mick Karn financially (even if it's just 99p), please visit Mick Karn's page.

And of course, there is that Lollapalooza live with X Japan. Not exactly new news either, since it's quite widely publicized, but hell, he sure is busy with all that going on! Not to mention he's got Luna Sea's REBOOT event, whatever that is, as well as that fan club acoustic live show. And I wonder what Asian country he's going to jet off to...

Just hope he keeps safe throughout!

Messiah is still my favourite dance song though. =)

The new VAMPS album BEAST is out now! I did order it, but I'm waiting for some of the other releases to come out first before letting CD Japan ship it to me. Really excited to hear Hyde's awesome voice and singing though!

And I haven't talked much about gaming lately, but one thing worth mentioning is that Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is in stores in the US now. I'm more of a Diablo person, but I truly believe that the campaigns are worth playing to get ahead with the storyline. In the mean time, I'm waiting for all the expansions to be released (and a computer upgrade) before making my move on the purchase. I wonder what Kerrigan's up to?

Okay, finally! My new layout for this blog is here!

I will miss the old layout and its colours, but this new one is exciting!

So what did I change? Mainly the comments. The old layout was under classic style, and despite claims that you were actually able to use the comment functions with that skin, it didn't quite work out for me, no matter how much I've edited the HTML and all that jank. Which really sucks because I do like the overall feel of that skin. And another reason: embedded videos always spill into the next column. Despite always changing the size to the smallest one to embed whenever I want to embed something from a video streaming site (mainly YouTube), sometimes the smallest isn't always small enough to fit into the body. So that also needed remedying.

As such, I decided to use the newer version of Blogger - using the widgets! It'll be easier to add (or remove) things from the side bar since I wouldn't need to fiddle around with changing the HTML so much. But at the same time, I needed bigger body space for my posts - most of the layouts I looked into were either too small, or too business-like, or the design sucked, or it looked way too much like a BBC page (or whatever news/magazine site). After all, I'm not focused on making it look too much like a magazine and I do want to keep it looking more personal than commercial. I did have fun creating the header, it is my favourite group after all. XD And of course, I kept the contents and the right side bar mostly the same and removed some unnecessary wording. The gifs stay though! I love them too much. I might change the background again to make it darker, but I'll give it a rest for now.

Moving on!

Oh...I meant to say...REBOOT (like Luna Sea).

The first thing that can easily put me off is the overall look. First impressions count, I know. It should also count for the internet. Yet, when I use the classic Blogger template, I can see loads of really nice layouts, but most of them have problems with the comment part. It pisses me off to see so few of these gorgeous layouts that can be used as the widget ones.

It's annoying.

And this brings me to my second point: function space. Half of the YouTube videos I embed here spill onto my columns. Not only that, my comments don't work unless if I use the widgets from the Blogger site.

Why must technology and design must be this difficult?

Oh. Boy. More money to be spent! Technically, I wanted to place this in the previous entry, but I feel that this one deserves an entirely new one of its own.

It's been announced that the GazettE will be releasing 2 new singles, RED and Pledge later this year, September 22 and some time in December respectively. Additionally, they announced at the end of their 1st live in the Nameless Liberty Six Bullets 01 tour that their tour finale on December 26th will be held in Tokyo Dome. More info in musicJAPANplus.

So that Boxing Day live definite! And at Tokyo Dome too! What news! And I'm really excited to hear what the new singles will be like. A ballad? Another hardcore? Not like they'll do any oshare, but in that interview with Uruha and Reita, they did mention that whatever they release after would always break their previous image. So nothing too remotely similar to SHIVER then.

What's next? A new album next year? Definitely really excited!

And I definitely need a new layout. Not that I don't like this one, but I hate it when the embedded videos always spills onto the columns on my screen, not to mention you can't even comment. I'm looking for something that's compatible with the Blogger in Draft (new layout template) though. *sigh*

If you haven't listened to them ever since Shiver came out, I suggest you do now. I feel that their B-sides are actually better than their actual release, maybe it's because it's more of their true essence?

First up, HESITATING MEANS DEATH. It's available on both [Optical Impression] and [Auditory Impression] releases. As I've said on the JRockRevolution Forums, the song kind of reminds me of a mesh of Toguro, Circle of Swindler, Leech and Discharge with slips of Ganges Ni Akai Bara and Before I Decay in Ruki's singing style. I can just imagine the way this song is played on stage as well as its imagery, starting out with flashes of light to give you a state of drunken dizziness, before belting "This bullet is all openings" and start doing random head bangs. It's probably one of those wild ecstasy song moments. I love his "whooooaaaaa!" it shows Ruki's gentler side. *fan girl talk* Hard and gentle in one song? I never thought it was possible without destroying the piece like 12012 did. (They did cute and hardcore, and it sounded a complete rip off of Leech, not to mention the song sounded like it had 2 styles that just did not go together, let alone a rather crappy video direction.) Then again, I've been waiting for a majorly Engrish song for a while - really exciting!



On the other hand, given the 2 B-sides, I would probably prefer listening to Naraku more. Easy listening purposes you know? Available only on the [Auditory Impression] release, it's definitely a worth listen to. I love that play-pause effect sort of like what Leech had in the electronica, but with a slower feel. I could certainly relate some of the bass style to 13STAIRS[-1]. I would definitely love to see how this song will be played out on stage. All in all, I love the arrangement for this song. It's almost a ballad in itself. Maybe a hard ballad?



Some Luna Sea news, yup, they've teased us again! So, what's happening on August 25? Announcement of a tour? New single? New DVD? Teasers!

It's here! I can't believe it's here! Fantastic song. I could imagine listening to this as a form of easy listening in the car. Now to wait for the real release on the 21st and the anime version.