The GazettE and Alice in Chains have been staples of my music selection over the years. I love them both, great bands, great talent, great music. But this year they both let me down. Not in a huge way, but both DIM and Black Gives Way to Blue were disappointments for me.
The GazettE really are a talented band and I’ve been listening to DIM since July when it released but I still can’t see how it’s any better than the band’s previous albums, in fact in may be worse. There is a noticeable difference between the quality of the music between Stacked Rubbish and DIM. Ruki is still as strange and vague as ever but the band seems to have gotten lazy. The three previously released singles on the CD were probably better than most of the tracks on the CD. In fact, The GazettE could have used all nine songs from the the three singles and they would have put out a better album.
I’m not saying the album is terrible but so many things are missing on the musical end. The album is pretty much void of good guitar solos, if they are there they are muddled by effects of Ruki making noise. Aside from Guren there isn’t really any gut wrenching, make you want to cry songs. The heavy songs are more muddled and crazy as ever. It almost seems like some songs were made especially to attract a younger crowd. In fact I felt a few times that Ruki or Kai could not have wrote certain songs since some just seem manufactured to blend in with a increasingly generic visual scene. If DIM was supposed to be the spiritual successor to NIL it did a piss poor job.
I’m also starting to wonder what is up again considering the gazeboys released Before I Decay in October.
Now onto Alice in Chains. There really isn’t too much to say, I’m glad the band is back together, I’m glad their making music again but no one can replace Staley. There is just something missing in the vocals. Though I must say, great job on putting some sort of meaning back into mainstream music. Radio rock has largely shifted from decent angsty music to really shitty party music. We’re at a point where there are hair metal lyrics mixed with grunge music and it makes me want to puke. It’s so terrible, honestly how many songs do we really need about partying?
