Japanese Doom Metal: Dir En Grey @ The TLA.

Text and images by Lee Miller.

Dir En Grey‘s latest album, Dum Spiro Spero, climbed to number two on the Billboard Heatseakers Album chart and 135 on the Billboard 200. Their previous effort, Uroboros, climbed to number one and number 114 on those same charts respectively.

Any Western band could take satisfaction in that level of success but for a Japanese band, that level of success in America is astronomical. While not quite as big as fellow countrymen LOUDNESS’ 1986 effort Lightning Strikes, which climbed to 64 on the Billboard 200, Dir En Grey has been by far the most successful Japanese rock band in the States over the last decade.

Philadelphia was the ninth stop on their current 18 city tour of North and South America. Dir En Grey are on tour in support of their new album and fans got a taste of their latest stylistic evolution. The band spent much of the last half of the previous decade blasting out fast tempo death metal, but has now largely moved to a slower tempo style that might be described as doom metal.

Rather than just be pegged to a genre descriptor, this new material has an experimental quality to it, and is lifted into the bizarre and avant garde by lead singer Kyo’s inhuman noises and chanting that punctuated and proceeded the lyrics of many of the songs performed. Although much of the set was in this slow, foreboding style, Dir En Grey touched on some of their older material in the set as well.

While the band moved through their 16 song set Friday at the TLA with impressive technical skill and Kyo put on a spectacle of sound whilst bathed in an impressive light show, much of the crowd simply didn’t seem to be feeling the new material. Although the first few rows of die-hard fans jumped and fist-pumped throughout the set, most of the people behind them were less enthusiastic. For a metal show, there wasn’t much moshing either.

There’s always a risk when a band evolves styles that some of their fans will be alienated, and Dir En Grey is no stranger to that.

As they’ve evolved into death metal over the last 10 years, many fans jumped ship. But they gained more fans than they lost. The crowd reaction wasn’t the most enthusiastic but it was hardly boos and jeers.

Dir En Grey is evolving again, and it is likely that their devoted fan base will follow them along for the ride.

Set list:

Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de Karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami

Obscure

Juuyoku

Lotus

The Fatal Believer

Rotting Root

Mazohyst of Decadence

The Blossoming Beelzebub

Tsumi to Batsu

Yokusou ni Dreambox

Different Sense

Bugaboo

Reiketsu Nariseba

Encore:

The Final

Repetition of Hatred

Rasetsu Koku