Velvet Eden - blanc et noir

I woke up by the doorbell this morning and since I understood what it was I rushed up, received my package and ripped it open.
Today is the release of Velvet Eden's new minialbum blanc et noir in case anyone missed that!

So I did what any other sane person would do, I just said fuck it to sleep and ripped open my package and then put the cd in my computer.

Anyhow, this release includes 6 songs, but only Misery and Goodbye Alice have not been shared on youtube so blanc et noir doesn't really include that many suprises, you know what you're paying for.

Overall, I think the sound is very varied, but I think we can sense a new sound for Velvet Eden in general. Since Chro joined the music is electrnic (of course) but with bits of electric guitar. Luzifer has grown on me, to be honest I wasn't that into it but I'm guessing hearing it live 3 times left some sort of impression on me because now I really enjoy its darker sound combined with Chro's guitar melody.
I have to admit though that the first song I put on was Toxic Queen, I just love it. It reminds me of Black Butterfly, but much better. I don't have many comments about it rather than it's pure awesome.

Those who read my livereports know that I was a bit confused regarding a song they played live, which later ended up being Jailed Prince. It's very rock for Velvet Eden, and the lyrics is all in English! Anyhow, the songs everyone know about isn't that interesting to discuss, so what about Misery and Goodbye Alice?

Misery is a bit slower, but in the middle, my personal favorite part, yet again it gets a bit more "rock" than Velvet Eden normally is, (or maybe I should say was now?), the melody gets a bit darker and the electric guitar more noticable.
As for Goodbye Alice, the beginning reminded me of Paraph, kind of slow and dark, but later the melody gets pretty catchy with the sound of an accordion and the chorus feels almost a bit pop.

The song which has left a big impression on me is No.15. At first I didn't really pay that much attention to it, when it was shared as a demo on youtube, but as always, I downloaded it and listened to it at random and found that I acctually really like this.
Dada said it would sound like old Velvet Eden, I don't know if I agree with that but it's truly great in its own way.
The melody is catchy in the beginning but around the chorus is the interesting part. First before the actual chorus starts, but the chorus itself is my favorite part as that's the part when Dada's vocals makes the song most interesting. The rythm of No.15 is kind of fast and constant and Dada sings sort of fast through out the song but in the chorus it changes and Dada takes longer tones as the melody continues fast in the background which I think sounds pretty cool. I think Dada's voice is at it's best when he doesn't sing that fast to be honest. (my explanation is probably very confusing but I guess you'll get what I mean when listening to No.15)

Tracklist
Luzifer
Toxic Queen
Jailed prince
Misery
No.15
Goodbye Alice

Darkest Labyrinth was kind enough to send the postcard which was announced after I put my order

So, I acctually got 2 free bonuses with my order, first the postcard which was announced some time ago, but also a DVD with the Starwave's bands new year greetings, and Velvet Eden was among them! At first I thought it was the same as the video shared on youtube, but it's not. Nothing that special was announced. The above pictures are screencaps. Also, as always Velvet Eden did sign the copies bought through Darkest Labyrinth, so if you care about that maybe it's worth getting your copy from Darkest Labyrinth instead of CdJapan, or Amazon! The booklet was full of pretty photos, most has been shared already on Chro's and Dada's facebook accounts though.

Happy Birthday Mana ~

Today, as all my fellow Moi Dix Mois or/and Malice Mizer fans knows, is Mana's birthday! I've spent my day listening to Malice Mizer and Moi Dix Mois, and ended it with coffee and icecream (didn't have a Mana sama cake unfortunatley).

お誕生日おめでとうマナ様~

~My coffeebreak in Mana's honour~

COCYTUS

After long days clinging to my kitchen window looking for the postman to deliver Hora's new CD COCYTUS it finally arrived last night!

I got home late but made sure to listen to it before going to bed, eventhough it was 2am, so I figuered I should post something about it here too (since I'm not in Japan anymore to post about fun stuff like gigs...)

My happiness over receiving the new CD was soon to turn into disapointment when I noticed mine was cracked, again. So far I've got 3 cracked cases from Hora and to be honest i'm starting to wonder if he sometimes get cracked cases because usually sending 1 cd in a padded envelope works just fine, without damages on the case.

The 100 first to  preorder COCYTUS received a photo, and I'm pretty sure the photo is from Schwarz Stein's oneman in November! I really liked the picture because it was a close up, but would've been nice if Hora would've faced the camera.

COCYTUS consists of 10 new songs (see setlist at the bottom), and overall I think Hora's gone back to his old sound a bit. Since TYRANT, or even as early as on WISDOM, Hora's given us a more brutal and darker sound, but COCYTUS has more similarities with his older CD's.

I haven't had the time to listen to the full album more than 2 times, mostly because I usually want to repet my favorite tracks for a couple of hours until I feel satisfied enough to go through the rest again, but the 2 tracks to catch my ears are FROST and BABEL.

Hora announced earlier that this cd would contain deathvocals so I was hoping for several songs, unfortunately not. BABEL is the only song but also one with a darker sound. The intro sounds a lot to me like IGNITION, which also is an all time Hora favorite for me, so no complains. There's parts before the lyrics which made me think of MODULATE GOD ~DEFORMED~ aswell. Both IGNITION and MODULATE GOD in the same song, recipe for success.

The song FROST is just awesome, the song keeps developing as you listen which I think is really cool since a lot of Hora's songs, or this kind of music in general, can seem a bit repetative. Sometimes I feel like the repetative ones must've been made when Hora's been in a Schwarz Stein mode because they seem like they're made to fit lyrics.

Like I said though, I can clearly hear as if Hora used parts from older songs and developed those ideas and made them into new pieces on COCYTUS. The titletrack as an example reminds me a lot of Magnificent from domiNATE.

I miss the darker sound a bit, but I just love FROST and BABEL so much that I can't really care so much about that. I'm pretty sure the rest of the songs will grow on me when I have the time to give them a chance (FROST and BABEL is so awesome I can't stop listening to them).

Make sure to buy this cd, if you like Hora you need to support his work! (and he do ship everywhere)
I'm really happy Hora hasn't forgotten about his solowork just because they revived Schwarz Stein, and I hope for more cd's in the future (soon).

Let there be light~ 

CHAMBER OF FEAR

FROST

BABEL

COCYTUS

PRAY TO GOD -DOOM-

MY VENDETTA

UNDERWATER

WITHOUT WORDS

WINTER BLOOD

PRAY TO GOD -HEIR-