"It's the sound of five people fighting to express every emotion..."
Dir en grey prepare to unleash new album Uroboros

Dir en grey will release their seventh studio album Uroboros on November 10. And guitarist Kaoru promises "Kerrang! readers will never have heard an album like this."
Produced by the band themselves, and recorded in and around Tokyo between March and August of this year, Uroboros features the following tracks: Sa Bir, Vinushka, Red Soil, Doukoku to Sarinu, Toguro, Glass Skin, Stuck Man, Reiketsu Nariseba, Ware Yami Tote, Bugaboo, Gaika Chinmoku ga Nemuru Koro, Dozing Green and Inconvenient Ideal.
It's a dark, intense and complex album, and according to Kaoru, "it's the best representation yet of what Dir en grey are about".
"This album incorporates the band's past, present and future," he says. "It's music from the heart. It's the sound of five people fighting to express every emotion within us."
Though enigmatic vocalist Kyo refused to be drawn on the specific themes on Urobors - the title of which is intended to represent the infinite cycle of life, death and resurrection - he assures Kerrang! readers that unfamiliarity with the Japanese language will be no barrier to understanding the emotions bound up in his lyrics. "Generally, rather than expressing the happy side of life we'd rather express the pain of life which most people seek to hide," he explains. "We think that by confronting the pain, fears and frustrations of life we can open up new worlds for ourselves. Japanese listeners will obviously understand every lyric, but just as when Japanese music fans listen to English music they get a sense of the emotion behind it, so I think English listeners will respond to the moods here. There is a lot of raw emotion on this album, and while the lyrics are directed more at myself than anyone else, I think they will affect our listeners too."
Having recently completed the Japanese leg of their The Rose Trims Again tour, the Osaka band are now looking to set up UK dates for 2009. And though the quintet laugh off any suggestion that Uroboros could propel J-Rock into the consciousness of mainstream rock fans in the UK - "it would be nice to change things," admits Kaoru, "but I don't think the world is ready Japanese bands in the way that say, emo was embraced" - they're aware that expectations are high for their return as the standard-bearers of the J-Rock movement.
"There is more pressure on us because of the success we have enjoyed to date," says guitarist Die, "but that pressure only inspirated us to focus more on music. What happens next we can't control."
Dir en grey's new album, Uroboros, is out on November 10 through Gan-Shin Records. You can hear the tracks Red Soil and Glass Skin now on the band's official website www.direngrey.co.jp.