Single: the GazettE - DISTRESS AND COMA

The GazettE present their first single this year and the last single before the release of their fourth album DIM. Last year the band presented us with two very excellent singles Guren and LEECH, both special in their own way.

DISTRESS AND COMA sounds like a hybrid of the excellent crooked, gloomy song Bathroom thanks to it's dead note filled riffs and creeping, dark atmosphere combined with the elegance, flow and steadiness of Guren. The song has got a very explosive intro that drives into excellent riffs with metal licks all over them. The chorus is intense as always and features some slight vibrato singing by Ruki though slightly repetitive.

On the other hand HEADACHE MAN is insane. And that is a mild attribute for it.
It starts of with some really screeching guitar sounds and then bursts into thick, dark, heavy riffs combined with a crazy beat, rabid scratching, growling, yelling... very Slipknot if you ask me. After the initial outburst they stick on such a mighty, excellent chorus as if it was taken straight from NIL and then the song takes a totally new direction and turns into a very frantic Gazetto version of Dir en grey's Machiavellism with a collective ground shaking chorus and a lot of twistedness that GazettE used to have back in their old, pre-NIL days.
I already sense one of the most bone-braking pieces on their live performances.
So whether you love or damn HEADACHE MAN you must admit that it's a totally different tune by this guys.

The last song of the single is the ballad WITHOUT A TRACE. The song is filled with sharp yet warm acoustic guitars with such a style that I don't believe the GazettE have ever used before, it has got a very westernized feel. But then the song burst out on the chorus, the instruments joins in and everything reaches it's peak on this strong, expressive, quite Guren like chorus. I love the feel that is enveloped in the chorus, a slight melancholic string but filled with a certain warmth and strength, a kind of a ballad that rather makes you lift your head up and smile again rather than putting you more down.

Rare are the bands that manage to deliver songs with such energy, strength, honesty and freshness making it sound like nothing you have heard before yet preserving it's core, as well as to redeem themselves for any downers they have done. DISTRESS AND COMA is another absurdly excellent single by the GazettE, which is compared to the previous singles more of a sure-shot, but a sure-shot that doesn't fail in delivering something new and unheard from this band in the end. The very narrow song structure that seems as if it's going in a straight line does leave an impression that this single is going in a bit westernized way, aimed more at a Western listener.

DISTRESS AND COMA is definitive, unconditional MUST for all GazettE fans as well as a strong recommendation for every fan on intense, rocking Visual kei bands. We can definitely be curious about what DIM will bring this summer.