It took me so long to review this album because it's one of those albums where it's hard to say anything. You might wonder why I even bothered to write a review, and... well, it's because I wrote down some first impressions after the first time I listened to it, and I guess having a blog for album reviews is pointless if I'm not going to review what's probably the best album of the year.
02. 訪問者X
03. 口に林檎
04. The Hole
05. 愛した心臓
06. MOAN
07. グロス
08. 論外な生き物として
09. 畏畏
10. 変わってくれませんでしょうか？
11. フレームアウトからの
12. 呼吸
(13. 愚問 (Demo Ver.))
(14. mysteryな (Demo Ver.))
(15. 触れさせる (live))
(16. 黝いヒステリア (live))
(17. 本能お断り (live))
(18. 猥雑 (live))
This is one of the most all-around beautiful albums I've ever heard. Already the first time I listened to it, I was immediately struck by how beautiful everything is. There are some really gnarly parts and it has a dark undercurrent throughout, but as a whole it's really beautiful in a way that's perfectly reflected on the album art. There has to be some obscure Latin word to describe that kind of beauty, but I don't know what it might be, so instead I'll just make up a word based on what it sounds like... "elegrosalious". Doesn't that word evoke some kind of elegant but grotesque beauty that's otherworldly and ethereal, yet also moist and perverse, and fizzing with electric tension and an eerie sense of timelessness? This whole album has more "elegrosality" than any other album I've ever listened to in my life. Come to think of it, Sukekiyo have been world-class "elegrosalists" since their first release. Anyway, you get the point: this album is beautiful and really unique, but can get intensely abrasive at the right times.
Margaret is a really beautiful song, to a degree where I feel like it's almost too beautiful as the first song... but it's still not the most beautiful per se. Since it's also the most "standard" song, as in the least "weird", that makes it a really fitting opener in that it kind of warms up for the weirdness.
訪問者X is probably the album's most interesting song. Yeah, that's pretty much all I can say about it... it's a great and fairly proggy song with a lot of different sounds throughout that all work perfectly together and blend really well, and at nine minutes long and a meandering vibe it's like a whole journey in itself.
The first time I listened to this album was like an emotional rollercoaster, I guess, but there was only one time I cried. That was sometime near the end of 口に林檎. It was kind of interesting because I was also bobbing my head and tapping my feet to that pulsating beat at the same time. Anyway, it has a cool guitar solo. Yeah, everything else about the song is great too, but in my opinion the guitar solo is kind of the highlight.
The Hole and 愛した心臓 are also really good songs, both have some of the album's catchiest individual little parts, but as a whole, neither of them is as memorable as most of the other songs for some reason. I'm not sure why, since the former is overall one of the most relistenable songs on its own, and the latter has one of the most memorable vocal parts (the repeating backing vocal thing that's almost annoying but not quite). I guess it's because the album is just so full of great, catchy and interesting songs, that simply being great, catchy and/or interesting isn't enough to make songs memorable in the context of the album. That goes to show how great the album as a whole is, so it's definitely not a bad thing.
MOAN is a can of earworms. It's the catchiest song on the album by far, impossible to not get it stuck in your head. I swear I've woken up and/or fallen asleep with the chorus and/or weird hook stuck in my head at least a dozen times since the first time I heard the song... and it's the poppiest on this album, but in a completely different way from Dorothy on INFINITUM (which I've grown to like a lot more than when I wrote the review of that album, by the way). The sparkly synths, upbeat drums and funky bass have a kinda 80s vibe (or in some ways maybe even 70s?), but it's also really modern-sounding at the same time. The vocals are one reason why it sounds modern, especially that weird hook part. There's a short shimmering guitar solo that also sounds oldschool-ish. This is one of those songs that just keeps getting better with every listen.
For now, the thing that stands out most to me about グロス is the guitar solo. The chorus is epic too, though... well, the entire song is epic, and it is pretty memorable and sounds great. I'm not sure why it doesn't stand out as one of the best songs in my opinion, but it could just be that being between MOAN and 論外な生き物として makes it "forgettable" since those two are some of the most memorable songs on the album. Either that, or because the transitions feel a bit underwhelming in a way that makes it feel like it never really builds up. Still, it's a great song... but again, all songs on this album are great.
It's best that I don't say what the intro of 論外な生き物として first reminded me of, just because it would be a really ridiculous comparison (even if it's not a negative comparison), but once the song gets going, it goes in an unexpected direction that works perfectly and flows like a river after a dam has broken. It's groovy with cool glitchy breaks, and a lot of variety in terms of vocals, Kyo at times sounding almost like he's coughing up hairballs like a demon-possessed cat but also epic clean singing and mumbling and much more; I mean, that could be said about most songs, but saying it about this song feels right. If グロス feels like it's not really building up, this is the opposite and the first atmospheric breakdown makes the buildup that follows and the epic churning after that hit really hard, and the second atmospheric breakdown is creepy and goes straight into headbang-inducing grooviness. All things considered, it's one of the best songs on the album; it's impossible for me to pick the best one, but it would probably be a tie between this, 訪問者X and 畏畏. Speaking of which...
畏畏 is where the album reaches its maximum intensity. It has hardcore punk energy wrapped under ten different layers of metal with an overheating industrial core. Unfortunately (but understandably), it's the shortest at just over two minutes. It's awesome, impossible to stay still when listening. The main riff is extremely simple but extremely effective, and it's accompanied by glidy and plucky synth leads. Also, if anyone for whatever reason thought Kyo has lost his touch with straightforward shouted vocals, this song proves them wrong.
So, like I already made clear, I'm the kind of guy who sometimes cries from stuff. You might expect that a guy who cries from 口に林檎 would also cry from 変わってくれませんでしょうか？, but I didn't because I was too busy trying to think of what the janky riff that first comes at 1:04 reminds me of... then I realised it reminded me of a riff in one of my own songs, and that the similarity is really vague (lol). After that kinda cringy realisation, I was able to focus again. Already on the first listen, I really enjoyed this song and was impressed by it, but even the remaining length wasn't enough to put me back into a purely emotional state of listening the first time. On later listens, I still haven't cried but it has been close a couple of times. It's just a really beautiful song, and the lyrics... I'm unfortunately far from fluent in Japanese (and have been slacking on keeping up learning recently), so obviously I didn't understand everything without reading the translation (which I didn't read until the third listen), but what I did understand already the first time around was heartwrenching. Usually, I don't even want to focus on listening to the lyrics in any language since good music is good music regardless of the lyrics, but in this song it's pretty hard not to focus on the lyrics at times. Anyway, even without understanding a single word, the vocals themselves would have a feeling of genuine despair at times, and just masterful singing and screaming and even a somehow fitting giggle thrown in at one part. The song also has a lot of interesting frilly melodies, little details sprinkled throughout, and the lush strings at the end drive home the melancholy but also have a strangely soothing atmosphere at the same time.
フレームアウトからの is really catchy and has some drum parts that sound like a boomer basement punk band's drummer momentarily possessed Mika (assuming he's not secretly a boomer basement punk band drummer himself), which is pretty awesome. I don't really listen to boomer basement punk and it might sound like an insult, but what other term could describe the style of drumming that's basically "D-beat and ayoub/tresillo in a blender" as iconically? To me, it sounds like boomer basement punk. In a song that otherwise sounds about as far from boomer basement punk as possible, it's really interesting how well it works. Yeah, I did really just write the words "boomer basement punk" more times than anyone should in their entire life. Anyway, the chorus is absolutely gorgeous and proves that Kyo's singing just keeps getting better with age. Not just that, the full-blown funky (and boomer basement punky) vibes throughout make it stand out from the other songs. It has some beautiful intricate bass parts that manage to sound as smooth as the simpler parts, if not even smoother; Yuchi is a very versatile bassist.
On one hand, 呼吸 is the perfect last song because it's the most ballad-like, reaches a peak of epicness, etc. but on the other hand it feels like it doesn't go far enough. That might sound like an insane thing to say, especially considering the monumental swells throughout and the guitar solo, but it winds down and ends kind of abruptly. In the last 15 seconds, it ironically feels like the song is not allowed to breathe, like it shouldn't cut from the climax to the bare-bones piano and soft vocals without some kind of transition... but maybe that's the point, although then I'd expect it to cut to silence, either ending abruptly or just having a gap for at least one beat or whatever; it's hard to say, and obviously I think it's a great song, so I'm not trying to sound negative about it. The end just feels "rushed" if it's supposed to be a wind-down, or "dragging" if it's actually supposed to be abrupt. If it wasn't the last song on the album, it wouldn't feel like that nearly as much (and doesn't when listening to just the song on its own), so I guess it's the effect of it being the last song that makes me feel that way about it.
In terms of mixing and mastering, this album is almost perfect. It's just right for what the music is; everything is crystal clear and it's not brickwalled like most modern rock, metal and electronic pop even though it is all three. My only complaint is that it feels overall too quiet, too soft and too clinical even at the parts where it objectively gets really abrasive and wild, like the loudness and energy never get pushed by the way the music is mixed or mastered but only by the music itself. Not sure if that makes sense, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it almost sounds like it was mixed in a way classical music might be mixed and mastered in a way that oldschool rock might be mastered, which is very fitting for some parts of some songs but doesn't feel right for other parts. Obviously it's not a big deal, the album sounds great and it is better than sounding like a desperate attempt to win the loudness war would be. Sacrificing dynamics would make the album sound worse, but I do think the envelope could've been pushed a little bit.
There isn't much to say about the tracks on the second CD, since most are live recordings and obviously not that different from the studio versions, except, you know, live. The two demo tracks are demo tracks, so any impressions of them can't be conclusive. For demos, they sound amazing, though.
Enjoyability: 10/10
Relistenability: 9/10
Memorability: 8/10
Coherence: 7/10
Flow: 7/10
Originality: 8/10
Epicness: 7/10
Nutshell: Sukekiyo keep exploring a new frontier of music
