the GALLO and its legion of demons - DIAVOLO

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DIAVOLO is a 2016 album, consecrated by many fans as the band's best album. On the cover we can see the Italian inscription “TRE DIAVOLO” or “the three devils”, and a little below the words “for cannibals, dykes, faggots, perverts + rapists”. Wait, calm down, don't expect this album to be a homophobic statement or anything apparently related, it won't be! I can tell you that the themes are heavy and will not be treated differently in the lyrics!

Before we start we need some context: see, the GALLO is a band that makes use of an eroguro style, that is, they use many erotic and grotesque tools in their compositions and visuals. They also use as a personal philosophy the metaphor "to eat" things, they are eaters of dreams, nightmares, sadness, pain and other things, they said to be a manifestation of "love" to the fans (which easily becomes understandable when you apply the concept of eroguro).

There will be no literal interpretations here, in this analysis we will consider the symbols of the eroguro and japanese language and the historical references used in the album. Remember, poetry is wonderful because it often allows us multiple interpretations, I'll give you one possible point of view, but don't understand it as if it's the only one possible.

Listen while reading!

Who are the 3 devils?

These devils are probably INCUBUS, SUCCUBUS, and BELIAL, which are the names of the 3 title-tracks from singles released only some months before DIAVOLO.

First, the GALLO introduces us to INCUBUS, which is a male form demon that invades people's dreams, sexually relating to them and draining their energy. Then SUCCUBUS, like the incubus, but as a demon in female form. And finally BELIAL, where we are introduced to the scenario of some (or all of them) of the songs linked to DIAVOLO: World War II.

The important thing about the 3 devils is that they show us 3 aspects that will be explored in the album, in INCUBUS, a manifest: the incubus are the band members, who narrate and devour everything is needed. In SUCCUBUS we see abuse and power relationships, especially those that leave women in a position of vulnerability and in BELIAL we can see the last themes, but placing us more or less in the years of 1930 to 1945 and, consequently, portraying situations of the periods of war.

LA LALALA LALA LALALA (8 

The GALLO begins the album as they begins the concept in the previous singles, humming a lalala followed by screams. 夢魔(muma) -INCUBUS- is the track that summon the first of the demons of the album, and introduces us to one of the most explored concepts here: a grotesque hedonism, filled with abuse and a murderous seduction.

According to the myth, the incubus is a male form demon that goes into a dreams of a person in order to have sex with it. It does this to drain the victim's energy to feed.

In this first track of DIAVOLO, we are set in a morbid setting, in the shadows of a city where "hungry incubus are waking up".

In addition to the incubus, a second figure is presented to us a few verses later:

The rainbow lights control the dreams of the children from this city and, in the cortege to the dead, they mock those who seek for pleasure

Starting from "rainbow lights", which appears spelled this way in the lyrics but is sung as "neon", most likely referring to the neon lights of the well-known "red light district" of Kabukicho in Shinjuku (Tokyo) considering what will follow. For those who don't know, red light districts are regions where there is a large concentration of establishments focused on adult entertainment.

By saying that "neon lights control the dreams of the children" the GALLO refers to prostitutes and how their lives are controlled by this lifestyle and, when drawing a parallel between rainbow lights and neon lights, looks like they meant that even though they are prostitutes, they are just children, in some ways, pure with their naivete and innocence (since in Japanese it is common to call young girls as 子 (ko = young), part of the word 子供 (kodomo = child)).

Later, in the chorus, the lyrical-self who once seemed to be a mere narrator now seems to become one of these women in the first verse, and in the second, the incubus itself:

With the rolls of money you piled up, you drown in this love game, buying love, buying dreams, buying me 

With the rolls of money you piled up, you drown in this love game, wanting to sell your happiness

In the first verse, referring to the clients of these prostitutes or perhaps to a pimp who comes to control her in her vulnerability and, with money, comes and dominates her body. And in the second verse, referring to this woman, who in her fragile state tries to sell everything she has in herself, including her happiness.

Still in INCUBUS, the GALLO comes and uses of its traditional allegory of eaters, placing itself in the position of incubus:

We eat dreams in this tawdry dinner
We eat dreams in this infamous dinner

As if it were an introduction to the band's position to the criticism they are about to do, as has been said in previous interviews: they feed on their audience's dreams/nightmares and their allegories. In INCUBUS, we are thrown into the first and most common place of DIAVOLO, an alley full of brothels and demons that only attack at night. This album came to narrate a nightmare, and this nightmare has to be devoured.

Tease Demon and Prison Demon - Belial and Astaroth 

And next we have Prison Demon, Astaroth, that, particularly, I think would be listed after BELIAL and the reason will be clear soon. 

獄魔 (gokuma) -ASTAROTH- in its first verse, bring us a kind of shocking affirmation, that is very important to us to begin analysing the next song: 

The devil laughs his head off about the legacy from the Empire of Japan

What is so funny about the legacy of the Great Empire of Japan? 

nichi ・ chuu ・ man ・ hi ・ tai ・ men ・ in

嬲魔 (douma)-BELIAL- starts with a dark atmosphere, quoting the initials from seven regions from Asia strongly involved into historic events: Japan, China, Manchuria, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. 

What do this countries has in common? The answer: At some point between 1930 and 1945 these countries was victims from the invasions and massacres from the Empire of Japan. 

One of the heavier songs from the band -if not the heaviest- counts with an air of nostalgia, sad in its way, about the memories from Japan and the atrocities that happened between the 30's and the and of the World War II. 

Seeing stars falling in the night of the end of the world
(...)
Remembering the taste of the women in China, while seeing the rain of steel falling

Over the 30's, the Empire of Japan took an extremely aggressive territorial expansion program and, relating this exclusively to China for context in the quote above, I can mention the First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars and the Nanjing Massacre, also known as Rape of Nanjing (which happened during World War II), that was, as we may suppose by their names, an episode of mass murder and rape by Japanese Empire troops against the city of Nanjing, China, lasting 6 weeks in 1937. According to Wikipedia "the number of deaths in the massacre can't be accurately estimated because most Japanese military records of the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945". 

Still in the quote above, when they refers to China, they use the writing 支那 (shina), that, after the events from the World War II, passed to be offensive. 

Besides China, the other quoted countries has also suffered lots of violence in the hands of the Great Empire, having been invaded and occupied in favor of the ultra-nationalism of the Empire of Japan and its territorial expansion policies.

Having this context in mind, you can imagine that the "stars falling" and the "rain of steel" that falls are gunfire. 

From here, the music goes on remembering the misfortunes that happened in the underworld of these terrible events:

From the bottom of this latrine a dead one stares, from the bottom of this latrine a dead one raise its hand
bathing in your lovely fresh blood, the desire drives him crazy swelling his virile genitals
(...)
In despair, know the prostitution, know the rape, know the murder

And, with a dark air again, tracing a parallel through the deaths and rapes committed in the war, says: 

Singing the last love song to you, my dear and precious love
I remember of all the number of people that were died in the war 

Little girls were killed (little girls were raped)
Girls were killed (girls were raped)
Women were killed (women were raped)
Old women were killed (old women were raped)

Then finishes: 

Let's spit in the peace that the Allies fabricated and go ahead to the heaven

From here, may be clear my personal reason for thinking that The Prison Demon (ASTAROTH) should be after BELIAL in the sequence of the album. 獄魔 (gokuma) -ASTAROTH- has a simple lyrics, just shows a condemned criminal awaiting his execution, exploring the symbolism of death that carries the number 13 itself  and also using possible heresies by quoting Nenbutsu (Buddhist prayer whose Western-Christian equivalent may be something like "May God have mercy on us" and its literal similar to "Hail/Amen Amida Buddha").

I'm saying that, in this context, the incarcerated can be a war criminal, that, condemned to death penalty, will be led to the gallows, just like so many members of the armed forces of the Japanese Empire in the immediate postwar period.

[someone] opens the gate No. 13 and, wearing a black hood, was reciting the Nenbutsu¹. The 13 steps creak as [the criminal] rises to the gallows and his glory is cursed

Disgrace Demon -BEHEMOTH-

Right after being introduced to the bloody war scenery and to the album's history context, we are placed in a new outrage.

In the beginning of 凶魔 (kyouma)-BEHEMOTH- we can hear people talking, a sound with static that seems to be of lots of people having fun, because we can hear laughs. Then the music starts, placing us in Shinjuku again, but now, explicitly:

In Shinjuku Sokai, the soldiers of occupation and war are only defying the rules

Although I am not entirely sure about this, I will take into consideration that "新宿租界" (shinjuku sokai) is the local betting room where you can bet on various forms of racing (horses, bicycles, boats, etc.). 租界 (sokai) means settlement, so it can also refer to areas occupied by foreign population that I mentioned in BELIAL, where the objective was territorial expansion.

In this song, we could have a paint of a moment that could or not be ordinary (even in the context of war), this could be showing the soldiers of the Empire (whose function was to occupy other regions, as we have seen) in a moment of relaxation, if it wasn't for its legacy:

Deeply poor, they do threatens repeatedly while get drunk with cheap drinks
The betting ticket of the race of the week in which they futures were entrust, fell and was floating in the latrine
Words of the Great Revolution are put into musics and the songs resounds in the Great Tokyo
In Shinjuku Sokai they stab a prostitute, defying the rules
In the middle of chaos, they rape her, repeatedly, while whistling

What could be a relief to the painted image from the army until now, becomes even more brutalized. The common activity that brings fun and relaxation that we can hear in the beginning of the music, with people laughing and talking freely, now, is changed to violence and, in this time, the violence is not with the foreign population as in BELIAL, but with the population of its own country.

The activity that would be (or should be) the focus from this soldiers is leaved in second place, "the betting ticket of the race of the week in which they futures were entrust fell and was floating in the latrine": The soldiers, deeply poor, take all the money they have to do a bet on any race, in some betting salon from Shinjuku, then involved by their drunkenness, they lost the betting ticket and, after that, go ahead on the Tokyo streets singing about the Great Revolution ("Words of the Great Revolution are put into musics and the songs resounds in the Great Tokyo"). Not satisfied, to demonstrate their ferocity, they stab and rape a prostitute, an action that is putted as if the characters in this terrible narrative think this act is something ordinary "In the middle of chaos, they rape her, repeatedly, while whistling".

Then, the GALLO keep on showing a different place from this same scenery: 

Someone born in this dark age signs a contract with the devil
Someone born in this dark age sells the soul to the devil 

Grabbing the collar of a faggot and picking a syringe up, they use methamphetamine

Exploring even further this underworld of ill pleasures, we have the image of two children, the first, hopelessly, signing a deal with the devil to "sell their soul" and the second looking as bad a the first, using drugs.

Here we can see that the term written in the lyrics refers to this second character as "prostitute", but when sung, refers to him as a "faggot".

We can conclude that, when it's sung that "Someone born in this dark age signs a contract with the devil" the GALLO refers to a person who, having been born in such an adverse situation, in his despair, becomes a prostitute (the devil being a pimp, possibly) and, together with another child in the same situation, is taking drugs, perhaps to try to dampen his sad reality.

And next, we return to the chorus, where the soldiers are drunk and singing around the city. In the city that they should be protecting but they are raping and killing freely, the same city where young boys see prostitution and methamphetamine as their only way out. 

And then, they conclude: 

The Dream Eater Demons are hungry and eager.

Who are the Dream Eater Demons?

Massacre Demon -ZIZ-

ZIZ is a creature of Jewish mythology, described as a large bird with characteristics of a griff, whose function, according to legend, is take care of the Air (in the same mythology there is also Leviathan as the beast of the sea, and Behemoth who was the beast of the earth). According to its legend, what interests us most for this analysis is that Ziz is also known for his heavenly chant, comparable to the phoenix's lament.

殲魔 (senma) -ZIZ- is right in the middle of the album, and shows someone, perhaps the creature itself, offering his mourning song to the dead and watching the behavior of those who survived.

I offer songs to calm down the revolted souls on the tombs under the starry sky
People that dive into a fake peace and that loose the war laugh with despise
People that believe in the fake peace and that forgot their wounds point and laugh

As if mourn the deaths that happened so far could be mocked, as if they were unimportant, or as if we should not deal with them seriously. They point and laugh, mocking the mourning, mocking the death.

Then he goes on to tell about the fate of the traitors, (who, here, may be those who betrayed the Empire, or those who betrayed life) who are revolted with their penalty:

announcing the death penalty to the depraved traitors
[that] betrayed by society and afflicted with guilt, realize that there is no value in protecting people, then slaughter them

He also mentions the mourning, not just friend mourning, such as the one we feel when we lose a friend or relative, but the mourning for all the life that has been lost:

Its comrade burns and die. Its enemy burns and die. Its life burns and die.

Then finishes, trying to find a reason to all this: 

I keep searching for reasons to fight and excuses to have born without being able to do things as open my wings and fly

Putting ZIZ possibly as a soldier, saddened by his actions and for having to deal with the war, he may be "looking for reasons to fight" other people's war (that maybe is not his own war), may be looking for excuses for not being free (open his/hers wings and flying), not being able to have a voice and saying no to the merciless orders he receive from his superiors.

殲魔 (senma) -ZIZ- in the middle of the album comes as a relief on the painful subjects so far, comes with some sadness, offering his melody and mourning to the souls that have been shown till now, and giving a pitying look to who are revolted by their (maybe deserved) punishments.

Malice Demon -LEVIATHAN-

After this pause to breath, we gradually return to the erguro rhythm of the album. In 姦魔 (kanma) -LEVIATHAN- we return to the back-alleys from Tokyo and see the story of a prostitute, who, under the same starry sky of the previous track where a mourning song was devoted to rebellious souls, is lying on a mountain of trash, trying to hear the melody of a winter ballad.

Thrown in a mountain of trash and looking on the Tokyo’s starry sky
She was concentrating to hear a winter ballad, [while] dancing snowflakes was melting in her cheeks

Then, as if the first stanza was the end of the story, the beginning is showed to us:

Standing at a red signal in the crossing in which their fates met, carrying disappointment in her arms
was yelling and crying, being pushed to inside a Mercedes that was shining in the darkness 

Every time she was violated by an obscene rhythm, the tomorrow became misty by tears
she was sank into a sea of vomit, dived in vodka and into an unrequited love 

Every time she was surrounded by a attractive love, the tomorrow became misty by tears
she was sank into a sea of vomit, dived in vodka and into a love that she would like to forget 

The hands of the clock shows the destiny, informing the pleasure time in the silence of the shadows
[while she] was yelling and crying, being pushed to inside a Mercedes that was shining in the darkness 

Every time she was violated by a obscene rhythm, the tomorrow became misty by tears
she was sank into a sea of vomit, dived in vodka and into an unrequited love 

Every time she was surrounded by a attractive love, the tomorrow became misty by tears
she was sank into a sea of vomit, dived in vodka and into a love that she would like to forget

The lyrics shows, basically, the routine of a prostitute, consumed by its sadness in her unbearable lifestyle, then, in the end (or the beginning), shows her moribund state after the events (that will probably repeats in the next night).

Thrown in a mountain of trash and looking on the starry sky
She was concentrating to hear a winter ballad, [while] dancing snowflakes was melting in her cheeks

AGIDA ・ META ・ MEGA ・ META ・ ANBURIDA

Then, under a dark lalala again, the last of the Three Devils from the title is invoked. In the same universe of prostitution and unsustainable hedonism, 夢魔 (muma) -SUCCUBUS- take us back to Shinjuku Sokai, the possible betting house from Kabikucho (Tokyo):

Corpses of dreams gather under the neon lights, reciting spells of "love" in Shinjuku Sokai 

Although we relive the nightmare of 夢魔 (muma) - INCUBUS in this song, now we have no longer the concept of nightmare eaters that was showed to us before, otherwise, they keep showing the routine of the prostitutes, this time not the ones who was selling themselves to the rich and important figures from the Empire of Japan as in the previous track, but probably those who were involved with the soldiers, as if contextualized in BELIAL and INCUBUS simultaneously, but from a different point of view.

Opening the doors of this cabaret, horny women in line turn her backs and smile, this world smells like weed and is surrounded by demons

In this song, our characters are Corpses of Dreams and Dream-eater Devils who, through a fantasious scenery surrounded by magic, drugs and nastiness, we have Prostitutes, Pimps and Clients.

Still as in Incubus, the meaning of the song is to show us a dream to be devoured but, this time, not to devour the nightmare that is narrated by the album, as in the interpretation of Incubus I suggested, but showing people who devour people, taking in mind: the Pimp (Dream-Eater Devil, who can be a woman, thus assuming the role of a Succubus - A female Pimp) that consumes the mind and extorts all of the prostitutes (that become Corpses of Dreams), and the clients who consume their bodies (who can also be Dream-Eater Devils).

The last devil: The Lewdness Demon -BELPHEGOR-

Much is said about Belphegor, but for this analysis we just need to know that some cultures believe that Belphegor is a shape-shifting demon, taking the form of beautiful women to seduce people who would fall into their tricks, he is also considered a "phallic deity", associated with sex, orgies and all forms of depravity. Belphegor is also said to have been sent to earth by Satan to find out if "conjugal love" was real or a fallacy that could be used by them.

The album starts with a manifesto, and ends in the same way. In 淫魔 (inma) -BELPHEGOR- we are kept in the same scenario as in the previous songs, but now we have a dual critique, the first that can be related to the context in which we were already inserted and the other one that we can consider modern.

In the middle of the night the bedroom is a utopia, in the darkness of the night the bed is an amusement park

We start with the first metaphor right in the first verse, "amusement park", here, is not literal and we will understand why a little later.

In mortal agony, riding elegantly on the merry go round that is the torture instrument of this demon

Okay, the first mental image we create with this song is from some kind of sick amusement park, we can imagine the lights, the toys, but this it's not, well ... at least not for the protagonist of this song, actually, this amusement park is probably some kind of dungeon (metaphorical or not), where the carousel in which she is riding is a wooden horse, not the ones from carousels itself, but those used as an torture instrument. And we go further to realize that probably all the toys presented during the song are also easily linked to torture instruments. (Throughout the song there is a Ferris Wheel, an upside-down Roller Coaster, and a Freak Show cabin, and also as non-toy elements as the smell of oil and the feeling of incontinence).

The second impression we may have of the song is that it is a declaration of love (in the GALLO's style, very grotesque), which we would imagine that would be to a prostitute when it is sung "Freely, I spend money with handsome men in this utopia swallowed by nightmares" but, by imagining toys as torture instruments, this statement may now be to the torturer.

But how could someone not only spend money on a torturer but also fall in love with him? Well, see, it's not:

At night, my body hurts because of the Dream-Eating Demon that makes me hold the passion that I feel for you, sweet
At night, I think of you because of the Dream-Eating Demon that makes me hold men that are not worthy of love

The responsible for the tortures described in this song is, once again, the Dream-Eating Demon, which we have already seen that is probably the prostitute's clients and pimps (male or female).

I reinforce this point of view in the part above where it says "that makes me hold the passion that I feel for you", which can also be translated as "that makes me hold the decay [in which I am] for you", a clear intentional double meaning, having on mind this interpretation of the song.

There is one more element that contextualizes us in this place: the music video. In the MV, the GALLO presents itself in a small, decayed place where we can see cells, the torture horse I mentioned and, in the background, a cage where Vivi (the band's mascot doll) is inside. In the secondary scenes, they are trapped and wearing nightwear (whose symbolism was already introduced early in the album, on INCUBUS, when they put themselves in the position of devourers of dreams / nightmares).

That is, in this context, the song would be about a prostitute who is trapped in a brothel, her jail, where she is sexually tortured by her clients and mentally abused by her pimp. Showing the violent and patriarchal nature of this underworld of ill pleasures that great part of our society pretends not to exist.

As a nowdays criticism, we can look more simply, without taking in mind the context of the album, as a song about empty relationships, and how they can be torturous. Where a woman takes her money to go around with several men who don't deserve her love and the sex, empty this way, is a torture. In this case, the Dream-Eater Devil could be herself (as Belphegor, she shift her appearance to seduce people who would fall into her tricks), or a part of her that she just can't help, she thinks of these men, even in pain, because at night, alone, her existential emptiness would consume her if she didn't behave like this. (we could use this point of view in most of the songs of the album if we wanted to)

To finish (finally) I quote the climax of the song, where JoJo uses an unsung voice to say:

About the differences in the Theory of Happiness, the question is if dedicate yourself to a geometric love is [or not] the main cause
We predict that this discuss is close to the end as the Galloism investigate how did the history of the underworld organize itself

Here's what I claim to be the album's "closing manifesto" when I say that it ends just as it begins. The Japanese terms for describing the Theory of Happiness and Galloism are parallel (幸福論 (koufukuron) and 黒鶏論 (kokkeiron), respectively) letting us to compare them, wherein the Theory of Happiness can refer to any social context that defines happiness (marriage, money, cars, a big family, popularity, etc.), and the Galloism is the whole concept of the band since its debut (talking about the "underworld", social-behave, playing about love concepts (abuse, processivity, violence), etc.)

Since its earliest songs, the GALLO has always made such criticisms about society, with its grotesque personality, always questioning people's behaviors in their ways of relating with each others. Belfegor being the demon that Lucifer sent to discover if "conjugal love" (or as in the song "geometric love") was something real or a fallacy that could be used in demonic favor, the GALLO concludes the album by saying that their Galloism was created to dig up the dirt and that they will go beyond any Theory of Happiness to study it.

"For cannibals, dykes, faggots, perverts + rapists"

DIAVOLO is a grotesque critique not only to the Imperial Japan but also of present-day Japan, all criticisms can easily be carried from the context presented between the 1930s to the present. Here we talk about violence, prostitution, drug use, physical and psychological torture, we also talk about relationships between people (not only romantic relationships, but power relationships) and about abuse, we deal with issues that may be sensitive to the Asian population such as war and the violence contained in it, we talk about mourning, and even more.

In DIAVOLO, the demons did not come from hell, never fell from the sky, the demons are us, people who see violence and do nothing, who abuse and let ourselves be abused, who fight other people's wars. The legion of demons showed here is simply an analogy to the darkest behaviors that we have as a society, we all know that the underworld exists, but only a few of us go to mess with this dirt. The GALLO, with its current 10-year career in visual kei, not only gone to do so, but did so solidly and boldly.

This is one of the most popular albums from this band, and many people consider this one to be the best, the music performance really is a turning point for the band, which over the years has felt the need to re-record some songs as their skills improved. DIAVOLO is solid, instrumentally, melodically and conceptually.