Japan has been stricken with catastrophic proportions since March’s earth and tsunami incident, Dir En Grey has taken these occurrences and infused it within “Dum Spiro Spero”.

The album appeals to all when you look at it, it upholds the ups and downs that make a Dir En Grey release, as such the mellow dramatic and heaviness that has always been there since 97 remains no doubts about it. But instead of having an obsessive amount of screaming rants again and again there is a variety of clean vocals that are sung and its quite surprising to say the least.

Kyo’s vocals make the music what it is while Kaoru and Die’s guitar work is anything but, whereas Shinya’s drumming and Toshiya’s bass lines just make the album stand out a whole lot better. Each song deprived of the vocals and guitar work really harness the bass and drum ranks to sound more in-depth and in focus with one another.

No more than two minutes to spare intro “Kyoukotsu no Nari”, makes an ambient noise sequence that dwells right into ‘The Blossoming Beetzebub”, a seven minute torture chamber if you will, it’d not a bad thing just tends to linger much longer than needed, having the outro having a slap of the drums and bass clash together making it stand out.

“Different Sense”, and “Juuyoku”, go in accordance with one another each delivering an extensive amount of raw intensity that’s thoroughly heavy when keeping to the beat. “Diabolos”, “Decayed Crow”, “Vanitas”, all seem to come together each portraying their own sense of rhythm except counter with one another to excel a touch of uniqueness all alone.

Dir En Grey’s eighth triumph release is shall they say “not their last”.

by Natalie Perez