This is a short one, and seems to be a favorite among fans who prefer the harder sound exist†trace had more consistently years ago. As usual, the lyrics are taken from Rock Lyric, and there’s a translation of an excerpt from miko’s blog about the song after the lyric translation. The first half of her post talks about “kuchibiru”; I’ll pick up from the second half where she talks about “RAZE”.

Oh, and I’ll say this as I wasn’t sure the first time I saw this song: its title is the English word “raze”. For a while I was mixing it up with the Japanese word 螺旋 (rasen meaning “spiral”), probably by association with the song “Spiral Daisakusen”. Ahaha…

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RAZE

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
目が眩む夜を
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
すり抜けて

Lie for lie

幻覚さえ見えない程　キミを壊してしまいたい
強く　逃げさせない　ずっと逸らさないで　このままで

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
掴みたいものは
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
一つだけ

Lie for lie

幻覚さえ見えない程　キミを壊してしまいたい
強く　逃げさせない　ずっと逸らさないで　このまま
キミに見せたいものがある
強く　この右手を　ずっと離さないで　このままで

RAZE

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
me ga kuramu yoru wo
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
surinukete

Lie for lie

genkaku sae mienai hodo kimi wo kowashiteshimaitai
tsuyoku nigesasenai zutto sorasanaide kono mama de

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
tsukamitai mono wa
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
hitotsu dake

Lie for lie

genkaku sae mienai hodo kimi wo kowashiteshimaitai
tsuyoku nigesasenai zutto sorasanaide kono mama
kimi ni misetai mono ga aru
tsuyoku kono migi te wo zutto hanasanaide kono mama de

RAZE

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
Slip out
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
from the night you’re lost in¹

Lie for lie

I want to break you so thoroughly there are no illusions left to see
Holding firm, I won’t let you escape
Don’t ever look away; stay like this

“Shut up, you’re lazy”
There’s only one thing
“Keep out, here’s a liar”
that I want to grasp

Lie for lie

I want to break you so thoroughly there are no illusions left to see
Holding firm, I won’t let you escape
Don’t ever look away; like this
There’s something I want to show you
Don’t ever let go of my right hand; always hold it firmly like this

Excerpt from miko’s Blog, September 19, 2014

And now…now we come to the song that was key to the mood of our live shows. Its title is “RAZE”!

“Raze” means “to destroy completely”. Fittingly, the band members and the audience get pretty violent during this totally dangerous song.

This song was born the year before last when we had a one-man show at Shibuya WWW. Around that time, I became desperately eager to write a catchy song that myself and many people could relate to, but it wasn’t going well at all and I became incredibly frustrated and depressed. Since we had a show coming up just then, I thought, “I’m going to make the most aggressive song I can possibly draw out of myself, something I’ll only perform live.” With that theme in mind, I made this song in an instant, and performed it for the first time.

What made this song feel so truly good wasn’t all the shouting and frantic playing, but the fact that I was able to express, straight out, exactly what I was feeling at the time. For times when I’m feeling friendly, there are ballads with those feelings; for times when I’m angry, there are dark, deep crimson songs with rumbling refrains. And that’s okay. Besides, I figured what everyone wanted to hear the most were my real emotions, my real sound. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and after that, my songwriting went incredibly smoothly.

Since I’d made this song specifically to perform it live, I didn’t want to turn it into a recording. But then! Not just the exist†trace family, but also various people who’d seen our show for the first time, they all went up to the merch table asking the same thing: “Please give me the CD with the nth song you played on it!!!” They came and they came, asking for “RAZE”…it blew my mind! The same thing happened at every show, so I decided to record it after all. Another reason I had was that it would be wasteful not to give this song to the people who haven’t seen us live yet, to overseas fans.²

“How do you pack the excitement from a live show into a recording?” This was a really difficult question, but a recording of this song can’t beat its live performance anyway, and if it could, there would be no meaning to playing it live. So with that in mind, we recorded it with a sound that would leave listeners itching to go to the concert, making them say, “I want to hear this track live! Come on, let’s go to the show!” This is the song that I want most for people to hear in its complete, live glory!

By the way…I once passed out during this song, so don’t overdo it, you guys! I really, really mean it! Because if you do overdo it, you’ll get razed to the ground. Got it?

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^1. 目が眩む (me ga kuramu) can mean “dizzying” in the physical sense of, for example, something being so bright to look at it makes you dizzy, but it can also be used metaphorically to mean something comes over you and you become unable to judge what’s right. Now, my interpretation of this song given miko’s blog (and I could be way off on this) is that the lines inside quotation marks in English are actually a self-reproach. In other words, Jyo is acting as miko’s inner voice as she scolds herself. That’s why I chose to translate me ga kuramu as “lost” rather than “dizzying”. ⤴

^2. It’s unclear whether miko is referring to two groups of people, i.e. Japanese people who haven’t seen exist†trace live AND overseas fans; or just one group, i.e.  fans who, miko assumes, have not seen exist†trace live because they live outside Japan. ⤴