Tribute To Phantasmagoria

A bunch of bands got paid to decided to pay tribute to Phantasmagoria! Now, Phantasmagoria is not the best band to be doing covers of, and these aren't the best bands to be doing them, but it doesn't matter since Kisaki is pretty much the current VK king/queen and has a contract of pwnage over them anyway. So, how did it go? Let's see...

Kibuya Honpo brings on their cover of Pixy false. It's.. okay. The vocal effects are actually fitting for the song and sound cool. But.. it sounds like the uninspired B-side of some pre-major-last-chance-to-hear-our-indies-sound single. That's okay, though, because the actual song wasn't too interesting in the first place.

Dali takes on Mikansei to GUILT and morphs it into their own style. It's interesting for the first bit. They actually appropriately Dali-ized the song, and it keeps chugging along at a nice pace, until their vocalist does that lame singing before the chorus. Then suddenly they get sloppy sounding. Now, I know everything is timed right, but something just sounds sloppy. It may be the production, but whatever it is just doesnt sound right. It's listenable, but not exactly awesome. And to think that this was actually one of Phantasmagoria's more awesome songs.

Hurts actually impressed me with unknow zero distance. They do some cool stuff. It has a modern VK attitude with an old VK style. I'm sure it will be a winner among the older VK fans. It's not dull or poorly executed, and the voice distortion actually isnt annoying. I like this one. I don't remember liking the original, so I guess that's a plus.

Bergerac likes corny synth. So of course they chose a song that could let them use it. So Actuate Eden was the song they picked. Their bassist not only can impress visually, but also with his skill. I don't care for their guitarists, drummer, or vocalist. All average. But.. the bass is coolest to hear. The song itself is average, too. It sounds like.. some late 90's Jrock song. The synth wasn't reverb'd at all which totally made the song feel cheap. Not to mention the horrible violin-esque sounds. This is forgivable, though. I didn't find myself wanting to skip to the next song.

Anjyu's version of Suicide Gemini leaves much to be desired. There's nothing special about it, even if the vocals are sorta interesting. Not much to say about it, other than.. NEXT!

Arc somehow pulls of Kyousoukyoku ~Cruel Crucible~ in a tolerable manner. Wait, no, above tolerable. More like... Gasp.. Good! It's worth at least a headbob. It rocks out, it stays interesting, and most of all.. it doesn't pale in comparison to the original! It's such a busy song, despite sounding simple at first glance. I don't know much about Arc, but it seems like they're the kind of band where the members are dull without eachother. Let's hope for no solo careers! They work well together, from what I can hear here.

For some reason VAGERKE didn't do Neo Ark, which would be really awesome, so instead they're covering NEVER REBELLION, which is really lame. This sucks. Moving on.

Hi, Nega! You're covering one of my favorites! Don't mess it uuuup~ Well, the beginning is nice. It goes smoothly up until...the bassist totally pulls a copout then the whole song turns into a 5 minute copout. No thank you.

AW, WHY DID SIVA GET TO DO NEO ARK?! That's a crime against humanity! There is nothing heavy about Siva. They totally ruin the whole screamfest part by just talking and growling. They ruin the awesome pre-chorus AND the awesome chorus with the stupid vibrato. Nice try there, Siva, but that won't cut it. You should've covered.. Nil Frontier or something.

Oh no. Doremidan doing Kami Uta. This is bound for failure. Oh never mind. This is good! It's not absolutely horrible, which I was not expecting. It's nothing that's worth writing something extensive on, but it's definately not something I'll never even think about listening to. The loud parts are awesome, I wouldn't expect them to actually do it better than Phantasmagoria themselves. Overall, this song is really good.

So, Kisaki, we now must say goodbye! Or not. Or we do. Or not. I don't know. All that matters is, you just figured out a way to sap more money by re-releasing your own music. You clever queen, you. See you next Cure!