WITHERING TO DEATH
WARCON RECORDS
Withering To Death is actually this Japanese melodic Goth/death-metal band's fifth release, their first US release on the Warcon label. The band is hugely successful in their homeland and are making strong waves across Europe performing on such festivals as the Rock Am Ring alongside Green Day, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, and Marilyn Manson. In Japan Dir En Gray's music is considered "visual-kei," a new genre of music focusing on the aesthetic aspect of the artist (in America this is widely known as simply "Goth-rock"). Although most the lyrics are in Japanese, the music is pretty universal, combining industrial-type beats with semi-melodic metalcore-style riffs. Nothing overwhelmingly special here but the band does have an interesting, somewhat diverse sound and style. Although I personally think this band is over-hyped in their (the label's) attempt at trying to break this band in America. Let's face it, Japanese companies have been desperately trying to break their artists in the US since the mid-70s when Japanese metal pioneers Bow Wow (a truly amazingly talented, groundbreaking metal band!) first came over to the States, and throughout the '80s and '90s with very little success. Many American metal fans may remember (but soon forgot) the likes of greatly talented Japanese metal bands such as Loudness, EZO, Anthem, Kuni, X-Japan, and female metallers Show-Ya (and let's not forget the over-hyped, talent-less female alt-rock band Shonen Knife) who all came over to this glorious country with a tremendous amount of promotional hype and huge budgets but never really attained any substantial success (although Loudness and EZO came close but got too caught up in the American commercialism which ultimately played against them.) And although Dir En Grey shows character, I personally think they'll have an immensely hard time trying to break into the American market. In my opinion, very average...very forgettable. If you're looking for truly exceptional Japanese metal bands, check out the aforementioned bands (excluding Shonen Knife) as well as Sex Machineguns, Volcano, Saber Tiger, Outrage, and Concerto Moon, it may be a bit costly since these artists releases are only available on Japanese import but it is well paying the few extra dollars for!
SEVENDUST
NEXT
WINEDARK
This genre of music has now become increasingly dull and downright stupid (fact is, I never liked it from the get-go). On Sevendust's fifth release, Next, their first release post TVT on the Universal distributed indie Windark, the band venture into territories that have been ventured into a thousand times before by every other nu-metal band on the planet, including themselves. I recall seeing this band live when they first started out and must say they were much more impressive back then. They actually performed with a strong sense of heaviness and melody without employing those stupid-ass screaming vocals that just about every goddamn band on the scene today insists on doing. The first few tracks, mainly "Hero," Pieces," Silence" as well as "The Last Song," exemplify that full-on ignorant Slipknot/Linkin Park/Fred Durst mulish alternating melodic vocalism atop nonsensical yells. Fortunately there are some melodic-metal tracks in which vocalist Lajon Witherspoon actually sings (fairly well in fact), particularly the songs "This Life," "See And Believe," and the semi-acoustic ballad "Shadows In Red." But these songs once again show nothing special or original. The musicianship is solid; the problem is the songs are just so bland. But if you're a fan of this band you may find Next to be an impressive follow-up, one bonus is the fact that this CD comes with a DVD featuring a "making of" type documentary. There's no question this band has talent, hopefully next time around they will be utilize that talent to create something far more original and captivating.
Shockwaves CD REVIEWS ISSUE 13 Page 8