Formed in 1997, Dir en grey has gone through various musical eras ranging from kote kei to extreme metal, with nu metal in between.
Opinion time: Dum Spiro Spero is their best album. Fight me. Uroboros is a close second, obviously. The Insulated World is their worst, with The Marrow Of A Bone not far behind.
As for members: Toshiya is the clear winner here. No explanation needed. Kyo and Die rotate between second and third place. I appreciate a number of Karou's looks and Shinya's fantastic youtube channel, but they are tied in last place.
I genuinely cannot remember my first introduction to their music, but the oldest song of theirs that I have liked is Obscure, so maybe I saw the video for that? All I know is that Dum Spiro Spero was the first album of theirs I listened to, so naturally it was removed from my Spotify region within a week of me discovering it. Tortured months I spent listening to it on Youtube until finally it returned to Spotify. In that moment my life improved tenfold; no longer did ads interrupt diru every single song to create my personal hell. From there I started listening to more of their discography.
My favorite songs change on a week to week basis (besides the love of my life, Different Sense), but Diabolos and 24 cylinders have been on repeat lately.
My ultimate pet peeve is every website that brazenly claims "Dir En Grey" means silver grey coin. Girl, where? Literally, it's "to you in grey" (or I guess it could be "for you in gray," if the dative case works the same in German as it does in Latin). Either way, nothing to do with coins.