Shiver ~ Gimmick

One of my other favorite musicians and guitarists is Yuu from the pretty well-known eroguro band Merry.  I recently had occasion to hear his sole former band, Shiver.  I was mainly interested to see if his guitar style is as distinctive as Aie's.  There were two guitarists, and the other one (Akira), like with Aie's early bands, was the lead and did most of the composing.  However Yuu did get a few shakes at it.  They were a pretty typical VK band, especially in appearance, and somewhat in vocals.  The vocalist sounds more like an Aki type than a Kiyoharu type, however.

After the fairly mundane Hypnosis, I moved on to Saibou, and I had to keep checking the composer, because with that galloping bass line and jazzy guitar riffs, I'd almost swear it was written by Yuu.  I can't really hear a second guitar either, and the one I mostly hear really does sound like Yuu.
The next song that came up was written by Yuu.  Gimmick.  Interestingly it wasn't really jazzy, but I do admit the lead definitely sounds like him.  He's also credited for synth, oddly enough.  Rasen no kago was next, and another Yuu composition.  Again, rather heavy on the synth.  It does an interesting thing about halfway through though, changing times.  The next song, Kuroi Kyojetsu is equally off-beat.  But it sort of surprises me that Yuu wrote these.  They seem less distinct and more "typical".  Whereas, wherever Aie has been, I can tell it's him right away.  I guessed nearly every Lamiel song he wrote, just by hearing it.

Nevertheless, I'd say they were pretty successful by small band standards.  They released several singles and a mini, and their guitarists went on to be the lead composers for their next bands; Merry and Baroque respectively.  It's also interesting to me that Yuu's name was written thusly: ユウ and ゆう.  It probably explains why the majority of Merry fandom now romanizes his name as Yuu and not Yu.

In spite of hoping to be all over Yuu in this, I'd have to say the best song I heard was, in fact, Saibou.  My conclusion is, as talented as he is, he's still rather young in band years.  Aie, after all, was in three bands before Lamiel and in three since Lamiel. He's also been all over the place in session bands and helping on other people's projects.  They may be the same age (I think, lol), but in band years, pretty far apart.