CLeiR - Dead Line (1997)

"Dead Line", 1997. CLeiR formed in 1996. Immediately after its formation, everyone besides frontman Kausu left, and a new lineup would then be made by the fall of 1996. In October of 1996, CLeiR released their first demo "Tragic Doll", and the group would release their second and third demos, "Dead Line" and "For You", in January of 1997, as well as their fourth demo, which was self-titled and compiled all of the tracks of their second and third demos shortly afterwards. Shortly after the release of these demos, however, guitarist Senki and drummer Atsushi would leave, and they would then be respectively replaced by Atsushi and Issei (一聖). In August of 1997, CLeiR appeared on the "The End of the Century Rockers IV" omnibus, and later released their first single, "Kreiz", that October. The single would have decent sales in the visual underground and the group would then appear on the "Black Market 1997 Vol. 2" omnibus in December of 1997. In January of 1998, CLeiR appeared on the "Face of Soleil" omnibus, although shortly after appearing on it, everyone besides Kausu would leave again. A new lineup would then be made by the summer of 1998, and this third version of CLeiR would make their debut on the "Lightning & Thunder" omnibus that October. In late 1998, CLeiR would impressively sign to the legendary visual label Extasy Records, founded by Yoshiki, although the group would end up disbanding in the summer of 1999 before releasing any material on the label. Kausu would retire from the visual scene, and returned to the underground music scene in 2006 with his own project Nakata Band (中田バンド), which he founded under his full name of Michihiko Nakata (中田充彦). In 2007, Nakata Band would evolve into a full-fledged band and change its name to The Heavenly Curve, although the group would eventually end up folding all together in 2008. Michihiko would then join the obscure indies group Badub, which also folded by 2011. Afterwards, Michihiko would then retire from the underground music scene in general. The final guitarist of CLeiR, Yahiro, would go on to become a support musician for the legendary visual metal group Sex Machineguns under the alias of Circuit.V.Panther, and officially joined the group in 2001. He would also join the project Elleguns in 2004, which would include other members of Sex Machineguns, although he would end up leaving Sex Machineguns in 2006, with Elleguns dissolving shortly afterwards. He, along with the other members of Elleguns, would immediately afterwards form the group J-P-K Project, which would change its name to The Cycle, and he would also rejoin his old group, the underground metal group Queen Doll. While Queen Doll would eventually fold again in 2010, he would remain active in The Cycle under the alias of Panther, until the group split in 2016, with the members then reviving Elleguns, and Panther would also join the glam visual group Tokyo Spandixxx in 2017 under the alias of Axxxe. While Tokyo Spandixxx would eventually go on a hiatus in 2020, he still remains active in Elleguns today.