Andrew (Almost) Withers to Death at the Sound of Dir En Grey

Album: Withering to Death
Artist: Dir En Grey
Genre: Screamo
Year: 2005
Label: Free-Will/Sony Music Entertainment Japan/Gan-Shin/Warcon

In this age of Panic! At The Disco and Death Cab for Cutie, finding music to review positively is becoming more and more difficult. Like searching for a gold star buried under a mound of fecal matter, if you want it you have to work for it. It is for this reason that I enjoy Japanese music as much as I do. My standards are higher than the Sears Tower but I find the majority of my discoveries through Japan have been overwhelmingly positive. This is largely due to my love of Noise Music, a great deal of which comes from Japan (Boredoms, Ruins, Melt-Banana, Merzbow, I could go on…), but also because of Boris, the Holy Grail of Foreign Heavy Metal (put that in your pipe and smoke it Norway.) Unfortunately, Japan is also the home to Dir En Grey, who kind of make me want to gouge my eyes out with rusty spoons and stuff them in my ears. Dir En Grey is a Japanese Screamo band who somehow managed to make a name for themselves outside their home country. How they did this is beyond me as their music is about as original as sliced bread. It’s really quite sad that a country with so much going for it in terms of experimental music and awesome food would also spawn this travesty.

Seeing as how their vocalist sings in Japanese, I can’t actually understand the words he’s saying, but the intention is there. The pho-death metal grunts, the screamy whining, it’s all there and the only reason more people don’t recognize it is because it’s in another language. I’m fairly sure that if you read the translation of the lyrics you would be regaled with teenage sob stories the like of which would make you vomit yesterday’s lunch. The band sells themselves as being very dark with song titles like “Merciless Cult,” “Machiavellism” and “The Final”. But really, it’s not that dark at all, more of a beige grey. I hate the voice, I hate the music, I hate the live antics, but most of all…I hate the fans. Anime Fan Girls were obnoxious before they started showing up at concerts, but the knowledge that I could go to a show by a Japanese band and be swarmed by twittering airheads swooning over the band like dogs in heat is almost too much to bear. The reason I know this is because Dir En Grey opened for Deftones last year and I had to share the mosh pit with these people. It was like an Anime convention, but worse because they wouldn’t stop screaming in my ear. All I can do at this point is ask you to avoid this band like the plague. If you must see them live, take food to throw at them. If you like them, there is truly no hope for you. I’m sorry, you’re lost. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more Boris worshiping to do (Rama Rama.)