Japan’s Dir En Grey Offer Hope on New Album

While the massively popular X Japan and their leader Yoshiki have garnered the lion's share of attention as the Japanese rock band du jour over the past year or so, the always-busy Japanese metallers Dir En Grey are emerging from the shadows with a new album that's laced with a message of hope. The band has announced that its eighth studio album 'Dum Spiro Spero,' which means "While I breathe, I hope" in Latin, will be released on August 2nd via The End Records. "The title is what we can say to the world as the people of Japan," said guitarist Kaoru.

Kaoru also explained that the 14-song album offers "something more savage from a deeper world, which is completely different from any of our past works." If you ask Noisecreep, "savage" equals good when it comes to metal, and whenever an established band tries something new or different, we're interested.

Dir En Grey also said that the new album's themes were inspired by the earthquake and devastation that took place in their native Japan this past March. "We live in a world where we don't know what is the truth and what we should believe in. We just wanted to put some hope into the music we created," said bassist Toshiya. The new record will be the band's first album since 2008's 'Uroboros.'

Watch the video for 'Dozing Green'

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