New England's Rock Web Site

DIR EN GREY

www.direngrey.co.jp

Withering To Death

Warcon Records

2006

By Evil Dickie

Ok folks, I never claimed to be an expert in some things in life; like doing my taxes, and now add Japanese rock/metal bands. My entire musical knowledge of Japanese bands is the band Loudness. I didn't know too much about them but I know the name. DIR EN GREY's Withering to Death is sung all in Japanese.

With their fifth album, Withering To Death is a dark, angry, tense good cd that took me a little while to warm up to it. Being winter in New England, I needed the warmth (ha!). DIR EN GREY are respected in metal communities with their experience playing shows in Europe with other rock & metal favorites. After listening to this cd, I can see why.

Put it simply, DIR EN GREY combines 90's thrash, some melodic hard rock, Euro power metal and some aggro rock/metal similar to the many bands on the OZZFEST tour every year. Vocally; clean higher vocals mixed some growls & screams, etc in Japanese, so no idea what they say but still heavy and with plenty of attitude. To let you all in on a secret, for the most part I only get into heavy bands that can sing besides growl & scream like Shadows Falls & Killswitch Engage. So DIR EN GREY is up my alley since they sing, growl, scream and play metal (all kinds)!

My favorite songs on Withering Death are: "Jesus R'n R", "Kodoku Ni Shisu, Yueni Kodoku", "Saku", "Merciless Cult",

Track listing

Merciless Cult

C

Saku

Kodoku Ni Shishu, Yueni Kodoku

Itoshisa Ha Fuhai Nitsuiki

Jesus Christ R' N R

Garbage

Machiavellism

Dead Tree

The Final

Beautiful Dirt

Spilled Milk

Higeki Ha Mabuta Wo Oroshita Yasashihiki Utsu

Kodou

Kyo - voice

Kaoru - guitar

Die - guitar

Toshiya - bass

Shinya -drums