Gone But Not Forgotten: D'espairsRay.

 

For today's post I wanted to continue the Gone But Not Forgotten series with a band that is still held dearly in my heart. The band that I'm going to write about is one that I discovered a long time ago, back when I was ending my tenure at a pretty bad high school. Unfortunately, at that time the band had already announced an indefinite hiatus. Their music was so powerful that it has stuck with me throughout my life and they will always be fondly remembered despite them pretty much splitting up when I discovered them. The band I am referring to is the visual kei band, D'espairsRay! 

D'espairsRay was founded way back in September, 1999. The members were vocalist Hizumi, guitarist Karyu, bassist Zero and drummer Tsukasa. One of the things that I love about the band is how this lineup never changed, the quartet that formed the band stayed together throughout the entirety of the groups history. It was Karyu that got the group together as he invited the members to Tokyo and they got to work instantly in a studio, making some initial recordings. In that very same month, they had their first live performance at Takadanobaba AREA. Allegedly, they performed in front of as little as 10 people before gaining traction which lead to organic growth with more people showing up to see them perform live. December of that same year saw the band release the demo, ao, which was distributed via their live events much like a lot of bands are known to do, especially when first starting out. 

2000 started out strong for the band as they released two demo tapes at the end of January, S yste M and Sakura. Sakura ended up being featured on SouNDBeast, an omnibus album that was released at the beginning of May. From the latter part of July to the latter portion of September, the band held a tour entitled, AN EXPERIMENT OF A HUMAN BODY. This time period also saw the release of a fourth demo, titled Razor. The following month, in October, the band released their first maxi-single, Kumo. The maxi-single was released under a subsidiary label of Speed-Disk, XXX-Records. With only approximately 1000 copies pressed, the maxi-single sold out immediately. To capitalise on the success of Kumo, the band embarked on a short tour that began at Ikebukuro CYBER at the tail end of October and ended at Takadanobaba AREA in mid December. They also were featured on HYSTERIC MEDIA ZONE, an omnibus disc that featured a variety of artists. They ended the year with a gig on New Years Eve at Takadanobaba AREA. 

D'espairsRay began 2001 with a live concert at Nagoya BOTTOM LINE in February, which was the beginning of a short tour which ended in March. This was followed by a promotional tour for the band's new single and a few days later, they officially released -genwaku-. Initially, only 1,000 copies were pressed and it was their first and only single sold out via pre-order at the time. The label responded swiftly and thus, more copies were pressed and made available for purchase. More touring and live concerts followed before the band released their first mini-album, -TERRORS-, in July. An accompanying promotional tour, Tour -Nine TERROR SEEDS- followed and saw the band performing in various places such as Hiroshima, Nagoya, Osaka, Sendai and of course, Tokyo. A the final performance of the tour, the band distributed a new single for free, [Monokuro] ni natta saigo no hi. This was the band's first foray into ballads with Karyu performing with an acoustic guitar for the track. The band ended the year with yet more touring and live concerts. 

2002 was a very busy year for the band as they started with another event at the beloved Takadanobaba AREA in January and a few days later, they released Ura mania theater under their own music label, MANIAC RECORDS. The nine live tour, [mania theater] followed. Their first documentation of their touring was released in May with the title, Ura Video. June 5th saw the band release the single SEXUAL BEAST and the second pressing of their first mini-album. A fun little detail of the booklet for the release was the fact that it featured manga illustrations of the band drawn by Zero. September saw the release of single Ori no naka de miru yume and featured a track from the band's alter egos, ANIMAL MANIA. Sadly, ANIMAL MANIA was rather short-lived despite being a fun concept as the members couldn't come to agreements on who would play which instruments and who would perform the vocals. The omnibus albums SHOCK JAM edition.1 and Shock Edge 2002 both featured the band. 

January 2003 saw the release of a "secret" single, Tanji. Tanji would later be renamed and released as Maverick a month later alongside three other tracks. The band appeared on Saitama TV's Hot Wave program on May 5th as part of the promotional tour for Maverick. More touring and live followed, but shockingly the band were talking about the possibility of disbandment! Thankfully, the band agreed to continue activities and produce more music. At the end of the year, the single Garnet was released. Garnet charted at #1 on the Oricon indies chart. They also changed labels to SWEET-HEART Co; Ltd, a subsidiary of Universal Music and opened their final website. 

April 2004 saw the release of the band's second EP/mini-album, BORN. The first pressing of the album featured a DVD with the music video for Garnet. Fun fact: SUGIZO played the violin intro for the song, Marry of The Blood. Two months later, they released yet another maxi-single, Gemini. A limited edition of the maxi-single featured a DVD with the music video for Born. On the 30th of October, they began their first overseas gigs starting with a performance in Berlin and ended the next day in Paris. 

The year 2005 began with the release of Murder Day Live, D'espairsray's first live DVD. A music video for the song Reddish: Diva Version was also included as a bonus. The band also performed for the first time in America, playing 5 gigs in Texas. Shortly after during the spring in June, the band released their first full length album, Coll:set. The album's release was followed by a number of tours. 

2006 began with the European release of Coll:set in January. They had previously signed with Gan-Shin Records, a label that is known for distributing records around Europe and is based in Germany. A US Tour followed shortly after, titled Global Infection and saw the band playing in areas such as New York and Florida. March 8th saw the release of The World Outside The Cage, a tour documentary DVD that featured footage made by the band members themselves with their own cameras. April 5th saw the release of Kogoeru yoru ni saita hana, another single. More touring followed including new dates in the US. They also changed record labels once again to Sword Records. The tour [LIQUIDIZE] -Yuugousuru taion- saw the band release some new merchandise including a photo book that featured a CD with the track Closer to Ideal. On the 3rd and 5th of August, the band played at WACKEN OPEN AIR. They closed the year out with more touring, including dates around Europe. 

2007 began with the band opening up a MySpace page on the 20th of January. March 14th saw the release of the maxi-single, Squall. One month later, their 2nd full-length album, Mirror was released. Mirror was also released in Europe in June and the band embarked on another European tour in support of the release. They ended 2007 with the release of another live DVD, Spiral Staircase #15. 

In 2008, the band signed with US record label, J-SHOCK RECORDS. This allowed the US to be able to purchase D'espairsray's music and DVDS. At the hide Memorial Summit, the band showcased a new song, BRILLIANT. More touring followed before the release of the single, KAMIKAZE, in August. The title track was used as the ending theme of Ranku oukoku, a TBS Kei TV production. The 3rd of December saw the release of HORIZON, another single. HORIZON ranked at #4 on the Oricon indies chart and was used as the opening theme for Music B.B. 

2009 saw the release of the band's third full-length album in March, titled REDEEMER. REDEEMER was released via Delicious Deli Records, another sub-label of Universal Music. They embarked on a promotional nation-wide tour titled Psychedelic Parade and followed up with a European tour of the same name with the words "in Europe" following the title. Another Japan wide tour followed in the Summer before the release of the maxi-single Final Call in September. Final Call was produced by Toshiyuki Kishi, the keyboardist and programmer of Abingdon Boys School. They ended 2009 by releasing a best-of compilation album, Immortal. Immortal would also be released in the US in April 2010. 

2010 saw the band release what would turn out to be their last single and full-length studio album. LOVE IS DEAD, the catchy single was released on April 14th and MONSTERS was released on July 28th. They promoted their release with style by embarking on a worldwide tour titled Human-clad Monsters. The tour saw them perform in over 7 countries and seeing them travel to Europe, Taiwan and the US and also perform in Japan. Sadly, on September 20th, the band released a statement on their official Facebook page in which they announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus due to HIZUMI's rare throat condition which was causing the vocalist issues and he couldn't find a permanent solution for it. Their last show was held on December 30th and they released a DVD of their performance titled Human-clad Monsters Final on the 30th of March 2011. A compilation album titled antique was also released which featured 17 b-sides and the limited edition included every music video they ever made on a DVD. On Wednesday the 15th of June, the band issued another statement in which they announced their decision to disband due to HIZUMI's condition not improving. Luckily, the band were able to reunite for a one-off performance on the 29th of July in 2014 at Zepp Diver City. 

What made D'espairsRay stand out and made them special to me was their sheer versatility. They could perform some crunchy, heavy hitting industrial and electronic metal and they could also do slower tempo, softer and much more intimate and delicate ballads. They even managed to nail a catchy, dance-rock tune with LOVE IS DEAD. Some of their songs were extremely atmospheric. Kaleidoscope has some beautiful musicianship that gives off a feeling of being underwater. Their style constantly shifted and evolved during their time and I think that this was a key factor that helped keep the original band members together. 

I also really enjoyed hearing HIZUMI's vocal progression throughout the discography. His technique wasn't always the most technically sound, especially during the early days of the band, but he was always a very emotive and expressive performer and I believed in the words that he was singing, screaming and growling. His peak performances for me were in songs such as Angel dust, Final Call, Lost in Re:Birth, Tainted World, Screen and most of the band's ballads.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the band were their really fascinating lyrics. Their lyrics covered various topics and were well thought out and delivered some really nice messages. The optimistic HORIZON is a great example of their lyrical competence as the song is all about perseverance and moving forward by following your own path. Kogoeru yoru ni saita hana is another example of a song with a powerful message. That song is about a person's loneliness, in this particular instance the singer of the song, and how they find comfort in bright memories. Yami ni Furu Kiseki is a beautiful song about love, a topic which the band covered a number of times. This particular song is about the singer's desire to be with his lover forever, even with her sadness and to share her pain. Tainted World is one of my favourite songs of all time and the lyrics describe a world tainted by corruption. 

To end on some good news, the disbandment of the band didn't end all of the musical activities of the members. In August 2011, KARYU joined the visual kei rock supergroup, Angelo. Angelo were active for over 15 years and released 13 studio albums before they announced an indefinite hiatus in January 2022. KARYU is also involved in the live session band, Luv Parade alongside TSUKASA and ZERO. TUSKASA and ZERO are also members of the visual kei band, THE MICRO HEAD 4N'S. They formed the band in August 2011. 

TSUKASA also became known as the first ever visual kei enka singer as he embarked on his solo career in 2014. He performs enka under the name Tsukasa Mogamigawa. 

HIZUMI left the music industry for a few years and started a design company called Umbrella (Not the pharmaceutical company from Biohazard/Resident Evil lol). He works as an illustrator and in other aspects of design which he has experience in from his das designing various stuff for D'espairsRay. In May 2019, HIZUMiI announced his return to the music industry and formed a new band named NUL. The other members were guitarist MASATO from defspiral and programmer Toshiyuki Kishi from Abingdon Boys School.