Bara no seidou
review by Elec

This album came in 2000 after a difficult time for Malice Mizer. In ’99, Gackt left the band to pursue a solo career, they lost their major label, and Kami passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Down to three members, they put out Bara no Seidou. The lineup at this point is Mana (guitar, synth) Közi (guitar, synth), Yu~ki (bass), a tentative vocalist (Klaha), and a bunch of other singers.

TRACKS

1. 薔薇に彩られた悪意と悲劇の幕開け

It’s an intro track all right, but more like an overture to track 2. It’s just played on an organ, like a call to worship or something, but it’s only 30 seconds long. And since it’s basically the idea from the next song condensed further, it’s not even a song. So, we only have nine songs? Bless your hearts, indies bands. Oh well; I like the concept of an overture related to a later song…

2. 聖なる刻 永遠の祈り

We get some scary church organ in the beginning, with very baroque chord progressions, which is far different than anything they’ve ever done. Then there’s a chorus of gothic voices.

So far I REALLY like the direction this album is going.

Klaha begins speaking, setting the tone for this concept album, basically saying stuff about how he’s going to begin the tale. Kinda nifty.

When his voice comes in, we definitely hear some power…not as much as Gackt’s, but I think I feel a bit more of a stately, mature, aristocratic sophistication from Klaha’s voice, whereas Gackt kind of reminded me of a young prince with immense potential but a haughty air. However, Klaha’s voice has the habit of sounding a bit unstable, especially in his slight overuse of tight, fast, sometimes unsupported vibrato.

The song almost drags for a bit, but then some strings come in and…do I hear guitar under there??

And the answer is yes, we get a pretty nifty little riff that doesn’t last long, but it’s a good mini-climax.

Then we kind of go into a creepier, thinner version of the verses, with Klaha and the other woman with the nice voice singing, and Yu~ki playing a really, really cool bass line. Finally, we really see his subdued genius.

And finally, we reach a chorus. It’s the same melody from the first track, which is a nice callback, in my opinion. It’s grandiose, and there’s a key change; automatic A for composition. The strings add a nice touch; I haven’t been terribly impressed with Malice Mizer’s string arrangements (other than merveilles’ ‘au revoir’).

The song ends at just over 8 minutes. I think lots of bits of it are really cool, but some of it does lag a bit. Forgivable.

3. 虚無の中での遊戯

In my merveilles review, I dump on S-CONSCIOUS for being an industrial mess. I mentioned, a bit anachronistically, that they do that style better later on in their career. Here’s one of them.

It’s also long, almost 7 minutes. We start off with a cool piano part in ¾ time, and then the buzz lead comes in, teasing us with harpsichords…and then it goes into this pounding, industrial, beautiful thing. Közi, Mana and Yu~ki provide voices on this track (or so I gather from watching them play this live), and while live Mana and Közi are just pounding on electronic drum pads, somehow they make it seem really cool. The song is creepy in a really cool way; watching Közi strut around performing this song is exactly the vibe I thought it brought when I first heard it.

The voices, singing in English, are a bit much sometimes, if only because the phrasing of the words doesn’t seem to fit. I’ll let it slide.

It goes on like this for awhile, taking some nice turns in the arrangement (but not deviating from the basic theme at all, kind of a detriment), and ends with the piano thing, fading out. I like this track.

4. 鏡の舞踏　幻惑の夜

Like I’ve mentioned in other reviews, Közi’s writing is hit-and-miss with me. However, this one is really very, very good.

It’s got a waltz feel, something different about it that Közi is always fond of, and some other time signature changes that are pretty cool. The first part of the song is Klaha talking over some constant harpsichord, and then the chorus.

The chorus is unbelievably catchy; probably one of the catchiest little bits on the album. AND THERE’S A KEY CHANGE, right in the middle of the chorus. Holy dude, this song is great.

It’s the shortest song on the album, I now realize, but that’s neither a point for nor against.

The bridge is a slow, nice sort of thing, then goes back into the verse and then awesome chorus. Klaha hits a weird high note at the end that makes me kind of cringe everytime, but eh. Nice song overall.

5. 真夜中に交わした約束

I adore this song. It’s kind of soothing, in a sense. It’s got the now-infamous Malice Mizer-chord-progression, which I’ll get to later, and lots of harpsichord.

Klaha sings a nice little verse, in which the sound is more soft and low. It’s a nice change. Yu~ki surprises me again with a complex bass line toward the middle/end of the song.

Then we hit the chorus, and I love it. I love the industrial drums, subdued in the background. The melody is well done too.

I think Klaha sings very well here, which is good. Sometimes, it’s not that he sings poorly, but you can tell that he’s stronger on some songs than others. He only sings five songs on the album, but you can see the range.

And the songs fades out with a softer version of the chorus, and fades out even more with this vox and harpsichord. I like this song a lot.

6. 血塗られた果実

Finally, some intentional creepiness. The harpsichord, the industrial drums, Klaha’s singing (in English, though)…it’s all quite grandiose, quite evil.

In the powerful part, Klaha’s singing sounds like it might derail at any second. I just think he’s putting too much power into it is all.

There’s a nice bit with pizzicato strings where Klaha sings more softly, and his voice echoes. I love the effect.

I guess my favorite part about the song is the industrial ‘war’ drums, and just the intentional fright of it all.

The bridge part is very nice and powerful; quite strong.

7. 地下水脈の迷路

Közi doesn’t disappoint me here, necessarily, he just kind of…doesn’t come through.

The premise is nice enough: sparse instrumentation, setting a definite mood, and I love the harp. But I have a problem with the singer, overall.

I like the verse part of the vocals. It’s beautifully scary, I think. However, once we get to the chorus part, where Yu~ki once again plays a great line overall (in fact, it seems they featured him as a soloist on this track live), we get this high, soaring vocal line with no place for a break. Clearly we can attribute it to a non-singer writing for a singer with little concept for the vocal instrument, but it’s not entirely okay. The chorus melody doesn’t seem to go anywhere, but the harmony part underneath it is pretty good.

The bridge vocal part is my least favorite part of this song, because the melody is both all over the place and kind of irritating.

So good thanks to the harp and bass, bad thanks to overbearing chorus.

8. 破誡の果て***

You know what’s weird? For a second, I didn’t miss the guitars!

This also has the trademarked MM-chord-progression, which I’ll discuss at the end of the review. It starts off with a chorus of vocals singing a nice little background thing, but then crazy fast drums and guitar squeals come in, guided by harpsichord and organ. It lasts but a second, and the voices come back in. But the industrial rock takes over, and it goes back and forth in this struggle for the ‘verse.’

Finally, in the chorus, they seem to meet at a healthy crossroads, with the vocals going over the crazy fast rock out part. It’s way, way cool. The lyrics are gorgeous, too; probably one of the only straightforward uplifting bits I can pick out on this album.

It’s a repetitive song, I’ll give you that, but it found a formula that worked and stuck with it. It’s one of my favorites on the album.

9. 白い肌に狂う愛と哀しみの輪舞*************************************…etc…

More guitar? It’s like Christmas!

The strings (beautifully arranged throughout) and organ bring us into the song, while the dual guitar rock carries us throughout the entire song. Finally! Malice Mizer playing guitar for a whole song! It’s special. More MM-chord-progression.

And the lines are so intricately written. A lot of the other dual guitar things they did were usually a melody and a harmony; this is written like a baroque piece, with both guitars acting as a melody. They fit wonderfully together; it reminds me of my days playing Bach.

The verse soars at the end of it, going back into awesome guitars. We go into the chorus, which is pretty and memorable. The lyrics here are gorgeous. Everything in here is pieced together wonderfully.

This probably could be one of their best songs, if not the best, in terms of emotion, lyrics, composition, and technical difficulty. Oh, I forgot to mention the key change at the end. So, yeah; this is their best, then.

10. 再会の血と薔薇

The biggest offender ever of the MM-chord-progression law is nevertheless a gorgeous song. Sometimes a bit busy, just variants of a theme, we still get a very somber, sweet, lovely composition.

It’s got everything: bells, strings, harpsichords (separately at first), in a time signature that is a bit elusive. I applaud Mana for bringing down the harpsichord in the EQ when the strings come in. In the past, things like that haven’t happened and only serve to clutter up a song.

I think one of my favorite sections is when the organ is playing on its own. It sounds very, very sad to me. Although, now that the vox comes in, that part’s pretty sad too.

And of course, Mana whispering just gives me chills.

The bridge takes the tune in a slightly more frantic direction, but not crazy, but it’s over soon enough, and there’s more nice strings and whispering. And then the organ brings us out of the song, finishing off the album sweetly.

MUSICIANS:

Mana: His compositions here tended to all have the same thing, but I think the standouts here are the three singles: tracks 3, 9, and 10. Gorgeous work. And of course, wonderful guitars, when used. And he certainly is prolific, isn’t he?

Közi: He wowed me with track 4, but with number 7, almost let me down. I appreciate his own direction, it just doesn’t suit me. Maybe if he’d written one or two more songs for this album, I could judge better. And wonderful guitar playing.

Yu~ki: While he didn’t write anything (that kind of bothers me), he still plays nice bass lines when needed. It almost hurts to see him as a member of the band, just sitting there not doing much. But maybe he was content.

OVERALL

This album seems to be a bit too much gothic, church-like orchestration and not enough dual guitars (okay, that’s mostly my complaint). But I certainly love the style they went toward on this album.

I mentioned earlier in this review the “Malice Mizer-chord-progression.” Basically, it’s a variation on “ii V I vi”, or “vi IV V I” or something like that. If you’re a musician, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Obvious offenders are: Gardenia, Garnet, ILLUMINATI, Bel Air, au revoir, APRES MIDI, Regret, Saikai, And Bara no Seidou tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10. I’m sure there are others I missed, but those are the ones that popped off the top of my head. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, it just shows that Malice Mizer can trick us with their awesome arrangements and variations on a theme, but underneath it all, you’ve got the same two or three chord progressions. Again, it’s not a bad thing. It’s actually kind of comforting.

But as for this album, I think it’s a great achievement. It also, I think, reflect on the tragedy that befell them in the past two years. And, maybe I’m a bad person for saying this, but I almost wonder if, Gackt hadn’t left and Kami were still alive, they’d write more prissy stuff. I know, I know; mob me now for suggesting such a morbid thing.

I think in America, we’ve got Goths running around, not quite sure what they’re doing. I think this album is the best way to define the mood.