I was compatible with Murasaki, liked its lounge-y pop sound, and TR very occasionally sounded like Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell so was interested in this one too. Plus for whatever reason Cappuccino and Shampoo appealed as much as SR's most celebrated material. I'm obviously naturally attuned to SR's early composition style and don't care who sings it or which songs I'm meant to find important or return to.
Zutto is the one that sounds like the rest of Murasaki although it would be one of my least favourites from that album (insofar as I didn't just tune out critical responses and let it drift happily over me). The chord changes at 2:40-2:48 on Zutto are good.
Toridori is really subdued, isn't it? If you were expecting sparkly 60s-ish party songs from the cover you'd be disappointed, Tokai no Manaa's the only thing with a pulse. The verse melody of Kodomo no Joukei holds me more than anything else on the album, SR or Izawa might make classical music quotations elsewhere in the song but I don't know how to spot them. I could be unkind and hear it as another accomplished genre piece from SR after Mittei Monogatari (it's a lullaby and it's lulling) but it's a little more evocative than that, there's an odd sadness maybe.
Curtain Fall and the shoegaze-y Mother Goose are not quite my kind of ballads, but I can understand if people love them, they're good.
Obligatory response to the TJ: continuation of the Variety songwriter form for me, and they do stand out as an odd band next to other, pleasant-sounding songs. Uki's warm, RnB-ish Mezame is the more instantly appealing but even if I tune out the cliches and cheap stab sounds it's only a song I half like, half don't, especially the melodic misstep "inside me" and "baby..." Tarinsu is Variety-ish with Uki's fidgety guitar in full effect and it's like a children's song. It's well-meaning and I'm incapable of disliking anything with handclaps, but I kind of don't know why I'm listening to it (a few words that sum up my experience of Jihen post-Adult). Actually the guitar solo is weird and doesn't fit...?
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