34 posts tagged “review”
aka the BEST DAMN PV OF THE YEAR *spasms*
abingdon boys school finally broke my months of no reviews because their latest PV is the awesomest thing made of awesome that ever graced the hall of awesomeness!
The screencaps don't even do the PV justice. The video howls and roars. It's dynamic, raw, and utterly stunning. The water, fire, and spark effects are perfectly executed to add that electric charge to the entire presentation. The camera shots and lighting brilliantly capture the energy of the song.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a work of pure genius. The PV creation team should win an award for this masterpiece.
Methinks that SuG will be the next hit and is destined for success. Seriously, the band's got the package for visual kei stardom.
This PV features the band in both heavy duty visual kei getup and acceptable-for-Japanese-standards street clothes.
Of course, there's the final and VERY! important formula for success #4 = musical talent. Alterna. is upbeat, catchy, and dude, Takeru can sing! All big pluses.
And look, the PV isn't typical visual kei indie low-budget crap! PS Company actually bothered to invest in this fledging band's debut music videos. This makes a huge difference.
Man, I've fallen off the face of J-Rock-dom for a while. Real life is seriously sucking my energy dry. I'm flying back to NYC one day next week for more schmoozing. Not to mention there are numerous business-y events in the month of September that I have to attend. At least I don't have to spend a penny for any of them.
But back to J-Rock, instead of writing ultra-belated reviews of recent releases, I'll simply talk about my impressions of the bands I have been keeping an eye on in the past months.
AN CAFE
Even though I normally don't pay attention to AN CAFE, out of morbid curiosity, I just had to see what the band is now like with the two new members.
After watching their latest Kakusei Heroism PV, I have to say the new guitarist is sadly lacking in screen presence. The camera is trained frequently on him, but he always appears rather bland, not a particularly interesting person to watch.
The poor keyboardist, on the other hand, barely gets any camera love. Whenever the camera is on him, however, he kicks up showiness five notches. His stunts are sometimes overkill, but I still much prefer him over the guitarist. At least the keyboardist appears to have a personality and personality, to me, is much more important than looking pretty.
I'm not going to comment on the music. I don't know the band well enough to do so.
alice nine.
Not too much is going on with them, other than the fact that a new single called TSUBASA is out on October 24. And a new as-of-yet untitled album will be released on November 28. I hesitate in pre-ordering the album, since alice nine. has been really inconsistent in terms of quality in the past year. I'll wait to hear the entire album first.
Oh, and Shou, wicked wicked person he is, posted this picture on his blog and caused thousands of fangirls' heads to explode in big, splattering messes. Ah, Saga, what flawless and jealousy-inducing skin you have. Seriously, somebody needs to find out his skin-caring secret. How does he do it?!
Dear Saga-sama,
Your fangirls are dying to know. Please tell us, what IS your secret?
Me
I don't think anything new is happening with them either. They're on tour and will be in Europe soon. I'll be on the watch for live reports when the time comes. I hope there will be many of them since the band'll be stopping by several countries.
Though, I really really wish the band can make make more PV's out of their new album. I wanna see what kind of PV they're going to make for AGONY.
LUNA SEA
Haven't you all heard already? LUNA SEA's reuniting for one night on December 24! Now THIS, is something worth celebrating. Go, along with many other bloggers I'm sure, has already covered this. But damn! *flails arms* LUNA SEA is my legend. This news actually caused me to seriously consider flying to Japan for the event.
I need a lot of self-restraint right now. I can't afford to blow money on this, no matter how much I want to go. But I'm sure, somebody, will be going and will be reporting on it, right? RIGHT?!
O-kay, and this is it for part 1 of catching up. To be continued....
1. 咲き誇る華の様に－Neo Visualizm－ (Sakihokoru Hana no You ni -Neo Visualizm-) [watch]
2. 歌舞伎男子 (Kabuki Danshi) [watch]
3. ママゴト (Mamagoto)
3A. あした、げんきになあれ ～独奏 JAMセッションver～ (Ashita, Genki ni Naare ~Solo Jam Session ver~)
3B. Coo Quack Cluck ～独奏 JAMセッションver～ (Coo Quack Cluck ~Solo Jam Session ver~)
Instead, I'd like to focus on the 2nd track of this single, Kabuki Danshi (or Kavki Boiz, if you want to follow the PV title). I'm honestly pleasantly surprised by how much I like this song. It's funky, upbeat, danceable, and totally fun. Kabuki incorporates an eclectic mix of rap, acoustic guitar, turntable, beatbox, saxophone, etc. etc. that presents us with a dizzying array of crazy, hip-hoppy-jazzy-rock-ish goodtime. This incredible diversity and excellent musical execution wowed me so much that I've been having this song on repeat for the past week.
I'll admit it. I'm not a miyavi fan at all. I've always been aware of his presence in the J-Rock scene and known that he stands in his own right as an influential musician. However, I never got what the hype's all about until his more recent releases came out. I began to pay more attention to him starting with Itoshii Hito and Kimi ni Negai wo. His music has gotten catchier and individual songs have become more compositionally cohesive, not to mention his singing has improved tremendously. The daring experimentations have so far paid off well.
Hmm, if he keeps up the excellent work, he'll gain (yet) another fan. :D
Unrelated: By the way, I just installed a site tracker on this blog since now Vox allows widget embedding. I can finally find out exactly how much traffic this place generates. Yay. And look, *points down*, Vox has enabled Digg too!
1. アトリア (Atria) [listen] [watch]
2. 宝物 (Takaramono)
1. アトリア / My jaw dropped. And I couldn't pick it up until the song finished! Danchou's powerful voice completely blew! Me! Away! I haven't been so excited since Deg, Gazette, and Nightmare's releases back in February. I'm using my laptop's speakers right now so it's harder to tell if there are any intricacies with the instrumentals though the guitar riffs sound interesting, but the vocals! I'm speechless! (And damn, I'm using too many exclamation marks.) What a remarkable song! I'm going to be playing this on repeat for the next week. ♥
2. 宝物 / I'm not sure if this is pronounced "Takaramono" or "Houmotsu" since both are correct. Anyway, "Treasure" is less intense and less mind-blowing, but still quite an excellent song. The instrumentals feel a bit too strong and kind of compete with the vocals for attention. But overall, this track's solid.
Gekkou Yoku, what a pretty title. As you might expect from a song whose title can be translated to "Bask in the Moonlight", this is a ballad (I was also thinking "Moonlight Bath", but it doesn't sound poetic). The rippling, glistening introduction immediately put me in a receptive mood. Shou didn't slaughter the song this time, thank god. His voice instead weaves into the tender, soothing melody to present an appealing whole. Though, I have a feeling that the major reason I'm going to give this song a higher rating is that I'm too relieved that it doesn't grate on my nerves.
But hey, another single's coming out in a month. Hope the band does an even better job.
PV? What PV? abingdon boys school's latest HOWLING, is in reality a promotional ad for bottled water.
The video itself isn't altogether that interesting. All the band does is jam in a garage and we get numerous shots of Takanori's bottled water shoved in our face. Though, the school boy theme still amuses me. I don't know why Takanori looks so appealing in nerd glasses and school uniform. The look isn't exactly glamorous rock star-ish, yet I have to admit he pulls it off very well. From pop icon T.M.Revolution to new band on the block a.b.s., one thing's for sure, Takanori's one kick-ass singer.
My regular visits to TechCrunch alerted me to a new "Web 2.0" online music storage service that just launched 2 weeks ago called MediaMaster.
The concept behind MediaMaster is allowing users to upload their music (in mp3, wma, aac) to the online server and give them the ability to listen directly to the uploaded music anywhere with broadband internet. Essentially, the service makes an online copy of users' music libraries. Currently, there is no space limitation for how much music you can upload and usage of the service is free.
The web user interface is flash-driven, and wonderfully sleek and intuitive. The design adheres to Google and Apple's philosophy of "less is more". Uploading entire folders of music is a snap. You may also create playlists, edit the album arts, rate tracks, and edit the tracks' meta data right there on the interface. MediaMaster also allows you to share your music with others by making them "externally streamable" through "My Radio" and widget embeding.
Aural Candy @ MediaMaster
- Online Radio (streamable)
- Widget (streamable)
- Online Music Library (browse-only, not streamable)
According to one of MediaMaster's developers, the rationale behind all this is:
[...] we are allowing only the user who uploaded the music to have interactive control of their listening. When you agree to our terms of service you certify that you have rights to the music you upload, and in order to access it, you have to authenticate yourself.
[...] through our widget we are allowing non-interactive streaming. You can pick a station and listen to it, but you cannot reset the stream once started. This is similar to what Pandora and others have done. There are reasonable licensing terms and mechanisms for managing this, and we will conform to them for internet radio applications.
MediaMaster's business model is untested in terms of its legal feasibility. Only time will tell whether the RIAA will go after them or turn a blind eye. But I must say, this is one hell of a kickass service. The elegantly simple user interface is a huge plus.
Anyway, here's my online radio powered by MediaMaster. These are the 2nd tracks across all the albums and singles on my account. This is nearly 7 hours worth of music. Enjoy.
As for the direction the service's heading for, here's another exerpt:
Enabling the interplay of our users and the ability to actually listen to each other’s music are our next set of goals. Common statistics (e.g. songs in two collections, most played songs, most collections containing a particular artist) are interesting, but really being able to enjoy and discuss a friend’s music is where we’re headed. How a service does that, LEGALLY, is just as important as how easy that service is to use. We have some pretty interesting ideas we’re implementing that we think you will love. We are building a whole new paradigm for social discovery.
1. JEWELS [watch]
2. ROSARIO
3. "13"
2. ROSARIO / "ROSARIO" is a light-hearted, fun song with a dash of whimsical melody. The playful bounciness makes this a great song for those carefree, sunny days. I have a feeling that this will be a hit at lives. I'm already foreseeing lots of skipping around, jumping about, and other type of fanservice-y things the band can perform during this song.
3. "13" / This is the heaviest track on the disc and hey, it has an excellent, moving chorus! Shou sounds amazing and his singing is actually correctly utilized so that it fits the song perfectly. This song would have been the winner on this single, except, I really don't like the falsetto (backup?) vocals at 2:50. Man, it's such a shame that this track is ruined by that one single thing.
This release, in truth, could have been much better. Track 1's vocal line is too harsh, and the melody too repetitive. Track 3 is dragged down by that weird falsetto. Bah, not alice nine.'s best work. This is getting discouraging; I haven't liked any of the band's releases since Zekkeishoku.
This PV scores points with the lush red and gold color scheme that make up most of the video, simply because red and gold are my two favorite colors (this is also why I love D PVs). These scenes seem to be shot in some kind of underground passageway. With the chains hanging all over the place, it looks like the hallway of a dungeon in a mansion.
The secondary color scheme is icy blue. Again, the setting is interesting because it looks like the band's playing in front of a giant fish tank. You can see water bubbling and fish through the glass if you pay attention. What's even more interesting about the tank is the panel carving that decorates it. The six-petal flower design is the same as the one on the wall panels found in the red and gold hallway. Where in Japan do you find a house with a giant fish tank with intricate carvings and an underground passageway?
The house aside, the PV itself is boring after the first 30 seconds because it's pretty much the same thing over and over again. Show Riku making faces, show the other band members, switch to the tank room, show more of Riku making faces, then cut in with some cheap computer effects. Rinse, repeat. Once you see the first 30 seconds, you've seen the rest of the video because it's the exact same thing.