Dir En Grey - A Knot Of DVD Review

Posted by Marshall Slayton on 03.21.2009

Want to read about an abomination of a musical product? Come inside!



(Note: There is no tracklisting. The designers of the DVD insert did not see it fit to provide us with one. Assholes!)


Remember Wayne’s World 2, where Garth recalls getting his teeth drilled, screaming his lungs out while Kenny G played in the background? Watching Dir En Grey’s new DVD, A Knot Of, I felt the same pain as Garth. This DVD is a mind-numbing experience, one that not even Demerol and two shots of whiskey could cure.

My problem is not with foreign music. Or even Dir En Grey, for that matter. I find it admirable how they sing in their native tongue. What’s more, their 2008 outing, Uroboros, was a compelling listen. But this DVD is not Uroboros. It’s not even close. (To prove my point, there are no songs from Uroboros included.) The video quality here is mediocre at best, using what appears to be five handheld cameras to capture the live experience.

Okay, I can deal with that.

What I can’t handle, on the other hand, is the atrocious audio quality. The quality varies from concert to concert, but if you check out the Rock am Ring footage, you’d swear the audio was ripped straight from a cell phone. The bass dominates, the riffs become indistinguishable, and what results is nothing more than a hodge-podge of chaotic noise. In most cases, you can barely hear vocalist Kyo singing over the intense drumming and grinding guitars. And Kyo has one hell of a vocal range, though you’d never know it here.

The biggest problem with this DVD is ambition. It wants to show Dir En Grey over the years and across the world. It wants to show fans from all walks of life. It should be simpler. One professionally filmed concert in one single location, complete with a backstage look in the green room with the band would have sufficed. Dir En Grey: Live in Tokyo would have been a pretty kickass release.

Too bad. Instead, we get everything crammed into one DVD release, and the results are completely unorganized. It was as though Dir En Grey took an external hard drive filled with video clips, threw them into a folder, and burned them to a DVD without looking over it first.

What? Only a few seconds of the song "Obscure" were captured? Fuck it, let’s put it on the DVD. Oh, and we filmed "Dead Tree" four times? Let’s put every single one of those on, too. That would be a great idea.

Not.

I guess I can’t expect much from fan club material, but color me disappointed. It’s very cool, however, to see Kyo’s over-the-top stage antics, such as his trademark “look at the blood flowing from my mouth” shtick. But when you can’t understand the audio through the thick bass, it’s very difficult to connect with the performance.



The band also shows very little warmth towards their fans. There’s almost no interaction whatsoever. There’s a quick shot of Kyo shaking hands with a fan at an FYE booth during the Family Values Tour, and that’s probably all it was, considering he wouldn’t sign autographs or take pictures. (You had to pay $18 for a CD to do that. ) When we get reactions from the fans on the DVD, it’s the unknown cameraman who asks them, not the band. (And when did female Dir En Grey fans get so attractive? Jesus.) Also included is a backstage interview with the band that lasts all of fifteen seconds.

I prefer to evaluate live DVDs based on two factors: how would I respond as a diehard fan, and how I would respond as someone who didn’t know the band at all? As a fan, I’d feel cheated that the only Dir En Grey DVD that didn’t sell for $80 would have shitty audio, crappy picture, and special features of use to fucking no one. As someone unfamiliar, I would invite friends over, have a beer, and enjoy a good laugh before chucking bottles at the television screen.

This DVD is a mess, and a waste of your money. Avoid it.

The 411: Diehard fans will buy it, watch it once or twice, and sell it back to the record store where they will find a pile of already used copies. You can find better video footage of Dir En Grey on YouTube. And guess what? YouTube is free. Pocket the money you'd spend on this DVD and go see them in concert instead.

Final Score:  1.0   [ Extremely Horrendous ]