Dir en Grey
The Marrow of a Bone

THE REVIEW

Explodes, the latest album by Dir en Grey, in waves of destructive energy. Destructive, yes, but capable of energizing like little other music can. Let's just say it "rocks": it possesses the rare ability to express even sensitivity and sweetness through harsh words, which intertwine with each other, never making you doubt, not even for a moment, that this is a heavy album.

It opens with one of the few lighter tracks in terms of sound, "Conceived Sorrow", and from there it already starts to capture the attention, to create the atmosphere, to introduce an entire world. Dir en Grey have nothing (no longer) to do with all the glitz and glam that the label "visual kei" would like to attach to them; although this definition is not defamatory, the band has managed to shed it by using music. Their style, personal and inspired, is filled with rage when the desperate lyrics of the first track pass the baton to "Lie Buried With A Vengeance". Remarkable are "Grief" (in which Kyo's penetrating and irresistible voice accompanies repeated curses to suggestive images like "blood tastes like vanilla"), "Disabled Complexes", "Rotting Root", "Clever Sleazoid", and the magnificent "Repetition Of Hatred". Fascinating is "Namamekashiki Ansoku, Tamerai Ni Hohoemi"; delirious, on the other hand, is "Agitated Screams Of Maggots" (which frequently repeats: "Violent your daughter on your grave"). In short, "Agitated Screams Of Maggots", from the melancholy beginning to the frequent episodes of rancor, up to the pleas of "The Fatal Believer" ("Please, grant me my little desire: love me to the marrow of my bones"), is an album that leaves you breathless, for ideas, cohesiveness, inspiration.

And it's just music: none of what you might read about visual kei in a glossy magazine.