X (X Japan) – Vanishing Vision – 1988

Vanishing Vision is the debut album om Japanese Metal act X Japan. At the time of the release they just called themselves X though. Apperaltny this was mean to be a tempoary name until something better came along but I guess the name stuck. At least partly. I have read up a bit about X Japan and they seem to have an “interesting” story to say the least. There is information about the breaking up because members left to join a cult. Appearently they were supposed to re-emerge but one of the members died under mysterious circumstances so it couldn’t be done.They also seem to be more or less respolsable for starting the Japanese genre Visiual Kei which, according to WIkipedia, is more or less equivilent to the western style that we call Glam Rock. It has nothing to do with the musical style and is only applied to the visual aspects of the performansens, image if you like. That’s also what Visual Kei literary means – Visual Style.

I wouldn’t claim that you can actually hear very much of it on Vanishing Vision. But it’s very interesting and highly unusual that the bandleader Yoshiki is the drummer and pianist. It may not be ususual that drummers also play piano. But as far as I understand it Yoshiki also plays piano at a high level and composes prety advanced pieces.

Dated

It would be very strange if Vanision Vision didn’t feel dated and sound like the early 80’s. Because it does and I think that is fine. There are very few albums that can defy the impact time has on them. There are a few masterpieces of course but they’re very sparse. If this was released today I guess the sound would be tighter and perhaps also more polished. I’m all for a tighter sound, the album would benefit from it. But the modern(?) trend to make every sound polished and “perfect” should almost always be avoided. That’s certainly something that takes the “edge” is almost all instances.

Musicwise Vanising Vision is prety speedy metal most of the time. If I understand correctly X Japan later became more of a ballad orianteated band but here i’ts still pretty furious. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t softer and more molodic sequelces too. The over 8 minute Alive for instance. There are also traces of some kind of progresssive metal or rock. I guess that Vanision Vision might have been a little ahead of it’s time.

All in all, it’s not a fantastic album för me. But still, it’s different enough from “everything else” that it becomes interesting and when someone mentioned the album to me, I don’t regret seeking it out and giving it a listen.