Industrial rockers D’ESPAIRSRAY will reunite in November (2025) for their first official live performance in over a decade. The band is set to appear at CROSS ROAD Fest, taking place on November 15th (2025) at Makuhari Messe Event Hall (Japan).
D’ESPAIRSRAY will reunite after 14 years for one unforgettable night at CROSS ROAD Fest, on November 15 (2025) at Makuhari Messe Event Hall (JP). The announcement marks the end of a 14-year absence from the stage, following the band’s dissolution in 2011 due to vocalist HIZUMI’s vocal cord condition. While the group made a brief appearance in 2014 during an Angelo-hosted event, this is the first official reunion featuring all four original members—HIZUMI (vocals), Karyu (guitar), ZERO (bass), and TSUKASA (drums)—since their disbandment.
D’ESPAIRSRAY emerged in 1999 and quickly distinguished themselves in Japan’s underground scene with a dark, aggressive sound drawing from industrial rock, nu-metal, and gothic aesthetics. The band was part of a wave of acts pushing the boundaries of visual-kei in the early 2000s, but unlike many of their contemporaries, D’ESPAIRSRAY focused early on international expansion. In 2004, they became one of the first Japanese visual-kei bands to tour Europe, followed by a North American circuit and a world tour in 2006. That same year, they performed at Wacken Open Air—a major German metal festival—as its only Japanese act.
Throughout the 2000s, the band built a reputation for intense live shows and sonic experimentation, evolving from dense industrial textures to more melodic and structured compositions. Their major label debut came in 2009, but the momentum was halted the following year by HIZUMI’s vocal injury. The official disbandment in 2011 was widely seen as premature, leaving a noticeable gap in the genre’s landscape.
Since the breakup, members have remained active across various projects. Vocalist HIZUMI returned to music in 2019 as the vocalist of NUL., while guitarist Karyu has been involved in Angelo and H.U.G. Bassist ZERO and drummer TSUKASA continued in THE MICRO HEAD 4N’S. TSUKASA also performed under the name Tsukasa Mogamigawa as an enka singer. In recent years, the three musicians have toured as Luv PARADE with defspiral vocalist TAKA––keeping the band’s musical spirit intermittently alive.
D’ESPAIRSRAY’s reunion will place them alongside acts like La’cryma Christi, Plastic Tree, SHAZNA, and Psycho le Cému in a lineup curated to spotlight foundational visual-kei and rock acts of the late ’90s and early 2000s. For longtime fans, the reunion offers both a look back at one of the scene’s most distinctive voices and a rare opportunity to see how the band’s music and energy have aged—or evolved.
Whether it’s a one-night stand or the (re)start of a longer love story, one thing’s clear—this is not a date to miss! Tickets for CROSS ROAD Fest go on sale via official lottery from May 8 to May 19 (2025).
⩺ More information: https://crossroadfest.com/
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