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the GazettE album BEAUTIFUL DEFORMATY (2013)

[ARCHIVE] Surreal Creatures and Powerful Sonority

  • album, archive, J-Rock, JPU Records, PS Company, Review, Sony Music, the GazettE

EN.CORE ROCKS ARCHIVE: The GazettE—a Visual-kei Rock band formed in 2002 under PS Company and King Records—diversified their style and underwent a significant transformation in the past years. On October 23, 2013, they released their seventh studio album in Japan at Sony Music Records (in Europe by JPU Records).

After spending the last couple of albums experimenting with more melodic elements, the band returned to a guitar-driven Hard Rock, Metal-touched, and drum-hitting sound with BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY with a throwback to STACKED RUBBISH. It’s one of their most varied albums, combining styles from their previous releases.

the GazettE album BEAUTIFUL DEFORMATY (2013)
the GazettE album BEAUTIFUL DEFORMATY (2013)

BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY

2013/10/23 Sony Music Records Japan /
2013/11/15 JPU Records

01. MALFORMED BOX
02. INSIDE BEAST
03. UNTIL IT BURNS OUT
04. DEVOURING ONE ANOTHER
05. FADELESS
06. REDO
07. LAST HEAVEN
08. LOSS
09. THE STUPID TINY INSECT
10. IN BLOSSOM
11. Karasu [鴉]12. Kuroku Sunda Sora to Zangai to Kataba
[黒く澄んだ空と残骸と片翅]13. TO DAZZLING
14. CODA

They are introducing their novelty with MELFORMED BOX, an intro based on a whispering woman’s voice, some electric sounds, and hard drum parts, which seamlessly tide into the next song: INSIDE BEAST, an impulsive, spirited and with a tang of Dubstep and Deathcore shrouded song, which was written by singer Ruki. UNTIL IT BURNS OUT (by Ruki), DEVOURING ONE ANOTHER (by Aoi), FADELESS (by Ruki), and REDO (by Kai) round off the overall impression of hard sounds, but then LAST HEAVEN, the album’s centerpiece, a sensitive and soft ballad written by Ruki, calms and plunge into a world of moving acoustic melodies.
LOSS and THE STUPID TINY INSECT (both by Uruha) apply leverage into the album before IN BLOSSOM (by Aoi), a song with one of the album’s most beautiful choruses to sing along with, soothe it again. Karasu [鴉] (by Reita) is a throwback to the Old School Visual Rock ’n’ Roll-influenced sounds with clicking slap bass of their STACKED RUBBISH album (released July 4, 2007 in Japan and on August 24 in Europe). Kuroku Sunda Sora to Zangai to Kataba [黒く澄んだ空と残骸と片翅] (by Ruki) is a great, melodic song with vocoder elements that make you headbang and sing along at the same time.
But then, TO DAZZLING DARKNESS (by Uruha) is the album’s true highlight. It combines all the great musical achievements of the GazettE. It reminds of past milestones like Chizuru or Kagefumi, (based on band and fan assertions and my favorite song on this album) before ending with CODA, a song which is meant to do the same thing as DIM SCENE on DIM (released in 2009 in Japan). It summarizes all the songs on the album. Every line is a part of one song. Even if it’s not officially mentioned, it’s obvious, if you look at the lyrics, like »Five shadows creeping in the malformed box« stands for MALFORMED BOX. This last ensemble—mixed with a breeze of Spanish acoustic guitar sounds that suddenly stop and want you to push repeat—tops BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY off.

Another essential part of this album is the extraordinary design of the special edition: A hardcover box with different overlapped 3D animals (printed on the regular version, also shown as art in the booklet), which symbolizes the irregularities of the five band personalities. About the design, Ruki said: »I thought the animals on the cover should stand out. And also, I put the animals on the cover from long ago. I interchanged that with the other theme we have this time, the irregularities of five personalities.« [1]

Each band member has his own animal: Ruki the tiger, Uruha the eagle, Aoi the owl, Reita the wolf, and last but not least, Kai the buffalo. It is up to the listeners to interpret the meaning of the associated animals. Which unique characteristics of each person do you see reflected in the album’s cover creature?

Also, it shows that the album was exceptional this time because each member wrote some songs for this album to show all the parts of the GazettE and return to the entity the band wants to be.

From soft to dubstep, the GazettE wanted to show each member’s facets with this disc. As Ruki said, »When our five personalities come together, irregularities emerge. It’s exactly those irregularities what we wanted to emphasize.« [1] And it worked. Even if I think it’s not the best one they ever made, it is one of the most interesting, flashing, and well-rounded albums with some of the best English parts of Ruki yet.

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[1] Ruki quoted from an interview in TSUTAYA VA Nov. 2013. This translation is a fan work taken from heresiarchy on Tumblr. The original interview can be found here: TSUTAYA VA Nov. 2013 Interview the GazettE. [Disclaimer: both links are not active anymore.]

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Disclaimer: This is an old article from 2016, taken from our EN.CORE ROCKS archive. The author, Jennifer Rathje, is a previous team member. We thank her for her passion and contribution!

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