2/16/2007

Malice Mizer is a popular band in the visual kei scene. Formed by Mana and Közi - both of them are cross-dressers. The band’s name stands for “malice and misery” — their answer to the question “what is human?”. Their earlier music and themes were characterized by their strong French and classical influences, later moving away from deliberate French romanticism and incorporating Gothic-Victorian aspects after several tragedies befell the band. Despite the stated archetypes, Malice Mizer is best recognized as a thoroughly original entity. The band is also known for their strings of dramatical changes and events.

Malice Mizer were as famous for their music as for their live shows, featuring lavish historical costumes and stage sets, short silent theatre pieces preluding various songs, whimsical dance routines, and even a particularly notable instance of the vocalist descending to Earth (the stage) as a fallen angel, only to ascend again at the end of the concert. Throughout their history, the band went through several different lineups and three drastic image changes.

On December 11, 2001, it was announced that Malice Mizer would begin an indefinite hiatus.

Gackt was recruited as their lead singer before in 1995 and for some reason requested to leave the bad at the height of their success. Gackt came out as a single artist a year later.

A few months after Gackt’s departure, drummer Kami died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage on June 21, 1999, leaving behind a handful of songs, which the band eventually released as part of the mini-album/video boxset 神話 (Shinwa ~Kami’s Memorial Box~). Kami was never replaced; from that point on, Malice Mizer would only use support drummers (namely Shue, who is not shown in the band’s later and final music videos, nor credited) and Kami would be credited as “eternal blood relative” on all their future releases.

Well, check out their gothic music videos:

Gardenia

Beast of Blood

Transylvania

Beauty

Source: Wikipedia