''Voyage ~Sans Retour~'' ( French: "Journey ~Without Return~) is the second album by Japanese rock band

Malice Mizer Malice Mizer (stylized as MALICE MIZER) was a Japanese visual kei rock band active from August 1992 to December 2001. Formed by guitarists Mana and Közi, their earlier music and themes were characterized by their strong French and classical ...

, released on June 9, 1996. It is their first album with second vocalist

Gackt , better known by his mononymous stage name Gackt (stylized as GACKT), is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. Born in Okinawa, Japan, to a Ryukyuan family, Gackt learned the piano at a young age and was raised ...

Overview

's singer and lyricist Tetsu left the group after a concert on December 27, 1994. After almost a year of inactivity, Malice Mizer recruited

as their new vocalist and released the single "Uruwashiki Kamen no Shoutaijou" on December 10, 1995. With a new concept, the band's music became more

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an art ...

and

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

, incorporating even stronger classical and electronic elements. Visually, they abandoned their 1980s goth look for colorful historical costumes with a gothic feel. It features an instrumental arrangement of a song from the days of the first vocalist, Tetsu. This is the first song to feature Gackt playing the piano and credited for the arrangement. ''Voyage'' was released on June 9, 1996 by guitarist

Mana According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology, ''mana'' is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have ''mana''. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being ...

's own record label, Midi:Nette. The first press edition, limited to 5000 copies, came in a plastic slipcase with an additional "Visual Arts Booklet". The theme of the album is "based on the story of vampires, taking a scalpel to the human world from the vampire's point of view", which also became the concept of their live performances before their major label debut.

Track listing

Except for Track 7, all the songs subtitles are only included in the lyrics sheet.

Personnel

– vocals, piano *

– synth guitar, sequence programming *

Közi Közi is a Japanese musician, singer-songwriter and DJ. He is best known as one of the guitarists for the 1990s visual kei rock band Malice Mizer. After they went on indefinite hiatus in 2001, he formed the industrial rock duo Eve of Destiny a ...

– synth guitar, sequence programming * Yu~ki – bass *

Kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the ...

– drums, percussion * Takeshi Kanazawa – violin on tracks 2, 5 and 8 * Mayumi Maruo – chorus, photography * "Patch" Kitaguchi – recording, mixing * Yōhei Shimada - Sound advisor, piano tuner

References

1996 albums Malice Mizer albums {{1990s-rock-album-stub