Dir En Grey
Marrow of a Bone
Warcon
Dir En Grey sound better when you don’t have to be surrounded by their teenage mall goth audience. This is not to say that the heaviness of their American debut, Marrow of a Bone, doesn’t come across live in concert, but its intensity was diluted by the fact that every kid in the crowd wore Hot Topic and heavy eyeliner. Should I really be enjoying the same music as these kids? I couldn’t help asking myself.
In the seclusion of my home, absorbed in the solitude of headphone enjoyment, the goth metal boys from Japan find a dark place within my head in which to germinate. The key that is Kyo’s voice is an instrument as vital to the band’s sound as the drums and dual guitars. He goes from the guttural to the girly scream and back again as smoothly as one would switch guitar chords.
On key tracks, “Lie Buried With A Vengeance” and “The Fatal Believer,” the elements of classic and new metal blend with the band’s Asian heritage, and I can understand why these guys are so huge. It’s a brand of heavy that transcends language, as their name attempts to do: “Dir” is German, “En” is Spanish, “Grey” is English. Translated it means “to you, in grey.” That phrase might not mean much, but the combining of three languages (none of which is their native tongue) says loads about the band’s ambition to reach out into every corner of the globe.
Dir En Grey: http://www.direngrey.co.jp
