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Old 2010.02.15, 02:24 PM   #81
Yahiko
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I agree with whoever said Zettai Zetsumei is awesome

i'm loving this album
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Old 2010.02.15, 03:00 PM   #82
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sweet spot i like but will sound so much better live i guarantee, just like how karada is ten times better live in spa and treatment,
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Old 2010.02.15, 03:02 PM   #83
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I was alot quicker to warm up to the album than I expected. the only song i dont like is Megaphone Song 4.0.

for better or worse the fanbase is definitely going to grow and diversify because of the bands new style. Its good-time casual music but with an unmistakable TJ quirkiness.


the band sound alot more cohesive, i think its because there isnt as much instrumental peacocking like on previous albums. and Ringo's voice is the strongest i've ever heard from her. and yet i still think the band is still only getting acquainted with each other and the serious ambitious music wont come until they get into that zone that comes from a band being in constant contact with each other.

hearing about the Shiina/Izawa collabs is great to hear. Izawa is using 21st century synthesizer sounds, great to hear. Ukigumo's guitar sounds awesome which is even greater to hear! he discovered Big Muff Pi or something similar and uses it alot. His songs also add sophistication to the collection.

I like Sports more than Variety, but i havent figured out why that is as both albums are similar.

recreating the vocaloid effect for Ikiru will be something to see live.

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Old 2010.02.15, 03:31 PM   #84
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Originally Posted by hoopra View Post
karada is ten times better live in spa and treatment,
Seconded. I thought she would screw up Karada's vocals live but they pulled it off and made the song listenable. Even the 'Time to enjoy! No hesitation, just sweet sensation' (cringe) came off better live.
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Old 2010.02.15, 04:08 PM   #85
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holy crap positive reviews, finally

its pretty hard to not just open the leak (I have it on my HD...why, I have no idea). hopefully my order will ship soon, Variety arrived a full 4 days before japanese release day (I have no idea why it was sent so early), a boy can dream, right?
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Old 2010.02.15, 07:50 PM   #86
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This was a very difficult album for me to get through. For one, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Sanpukan really was rather boring. Not to mention this whole scene has a rather bad taste in my mouth thanks to some bright thinkers at this very forum. Sports sits at a very precarious situation. It is following Variety which was a weak album to say the least, and Sanmon Gossip from the SR solo side which featured some very good and interesting artistic takes and some very bad ones which unfortunately left the album with a “meh” appeal. Hey, why stop at Shiina? Since Variety, we’ve also been exposed to Izawa and Uki’s solo (or at least, non-Jihen related) efforts too. If one thing can be generalized, compared to post-Adult Jihen, the band seems to work better away from each other. Why then should we care if Tokyo Jihen releases another album? More importantly, do Shiina/Uki/Izawa/Kameda/Hata care about it more than it just being a sure paycheck? Artists gots to pay the bills, not like Appa is rolling in it… That was my big question/worry/dread going into this album: is this just payday for these guys pandering to the jpop-central or will they start putting some artistic attention into this band that they do their separate bands?

It took three tries to make it through this album for one reason though ultimately: it is a pretty rough start.

01. Ikiru: They tried something “new” with an acapella-ish song. They auto-tuned the guys, yet I have to assume they auto-out-of-tuned Shiina to counteract this. Must be a statement on that technology – or just Shiina singing poorly. But we’d never expect that from her, right? Then the song inexplicably rehashes Killer Tune’s outro. Coming back around to this song, you see they are trying to set up their real jewel later in the album, which is a noble attempt but I just don’t think we are primed well enough to accept Ikiru due to the ending and the next three songs which move the listener far away from this focus.

02. Denpa Tsuuchin: Once you cede there aren’t going to be anymore Honnous, Ichijikus, or even Gunjous, I think you can live with a song like this. It actually has a hook, catchy chorus. Once you get passed Kameda, I think this a very adequate song and should be a single. They kind of drop the ball on the ending, but, well. The band has a fascination with these hyper-pop songs and I guess they’re just not going away (that and the lounge stuff.) Finally we got a good one. Electronic keys by Izawa and the production on Shiina’s vocals definitely solidify this song.

03. Season Sayonara: An all round sloppily written song to play during the credits of an anime. Vapid, insists on being fast and rapid so it can hurry up and go nowhere. This is the tails side of the hyper-pop coin. Part of me wonders if slowing this down would help settle things.

04. Kachi-ikusa: The problem with Jihen is that too often their songs are flat. If the song were a landscape there would be no peaks or valleys, just one constant plateau. Seemingly the only way they counteract this is that they just make the outro really fast bafflingly. That’s a cop out and this is a perfect example of a song where they don’t even do that.

05. FOUL: Izawa’s solo is pretty good here, in fact the band is playing uncharacteristically inoffensive – except Shiina, but I think that’s less to do with the distorted vocals and more to do with the melody that could have been sharpened. Surprisingly, not bad enough to use the license to go all out with unfunny puns using the songs name. Not exactly a single but it’s a fun Jihen-brand freak out song (which is what Osca was I guess, but I didn’t and still just don’t get that song.)

06. Utenkekkou: The intro leads you to believe the worst – Kameda’s dreadfully omnipresent bass and harmony from Uki. However, the skies clear and there is a very pretty song in there. There are parts that completely work for this song. Izawa’s outro, the end of the musical bridge and they make you forget about some of the lackluster parts of the song: the beginning of the bridge and the lack of a chorus for the most part.

07. Noudouteki Sanpukan: So this is the single I listened to twice and forgot about completely. The song opens so promising with something that’s NOT Ukitar, piano, bass, or Shiina screeching; such a welcome change you’re almost willing to give anything that’s coming a pass. However, I keep waiting for the song to start. This song seems a lot like Shun from SG, it’s not annoying enough to make a mad dash for the skip button, but I really don’t think it’s a song that has the kind of appeal to make you dig out the cd and give it a spin. I will say this is a typical post-Adult TJ song where it just seems to go on and on so rather than building upon itself (like Honnou.) Frankly, I think these kind of songs are what hurt the band and make their songs pretty unremarkable.

08. Zettai Zetsumei: The good here is that Shiina is singing from a different register than she has sung in a long while (well, if O Chiten Kara counts as a long time.) People seem to like this song, its bright its poppy, and at this point in the album I’m willing to give the band credit they’ve outgrown their “selfish” performances. However, I just can’t ultimately give this song a big thumbs up and the problems are structural. From the moment the song starts til 1:13, we hear the hook/chrorus of the song for two iterations and it’s pretty good. But from that moment we go into a sequence of verse-counter chrorus-guitar solo-verse and only then until 2:40 (of a 3:07 song) do we go back to the chorus a final time. I think in that 1:30 gap – half the song, we are taken so far away from what should be the heart of the song that when we do go back to it we’re thinking “finally.” The fact there’s a solo after the counter of the hook really impedes the momentum of the song. It doesn’t ruin the song, if I’m not paying attention I don’t mind so much – but that’s not a good qualifier. It’s a good song, not a great song.

09. FAIR: The word that most describes the album up to this point. This song might as well have begun at 2:01 because Shiina’s part really doesn’t add a thing to the song up to that point and the musical bridge is pretty darn solid. The outro fairs better.

10. Noriki: It sounds like Denpa’s less talented little brother, however I don’t want to say there’s no charm here. It does fall prey to some weak writing in parts, but I think the better parts do pull the song up. The chorus is another one of those Kingyo/Season Sayonara choruses that sounds like it’s really in a hurry to go nowhere, but this time it actually does have a nice payoff (even if we have to wait for the second time around.) The break down at 2:13 is really effective, however then falls prey to TJ’s fast-outro fascination.

11. Sweet Spot: I’m trying my best to ignore the lyrics, and choose to assume the rest of the lyrics are not this awkward. I think this is a surprisingly good song. I am a fan of Shiina + acoustic guitar. I got really hopeful at 2:00 that the build-up was really going to knock this song out of the park, unfortunately it climaxed with a same old Uki solo coming from the same guitar we’ve heard most of the album rather than going for something with more contrast – like this song. Oh well, beyond that the outro thankfully does not ruin a song that I rather like.

12. Senkou Shoujo: I swear to god, if this song was included for the god damned symmetry… I like this song, one of my favorite VARIETY-ERA songs. That said, it does not belong here at all. Doesn’t even fit thematically, unless “made by Tokyo Jihen” is a theme. Going from Sweet Spot to the intro of Kimaru sounds GREAT. SS here was a horrible decision. This does not work like Death Jazz worked on SG.

13. Kimaru: Sonically, it’s the most interesting thing Shiina has done since Ichijiku no Hana or any other KZK song. I get hints of Revolver here (Love You To, Tomorrow Never Knows.) That’s right I am actually favorably comparing a Jihen song to The Beatles. Believe me, no one is happier or more surprised than me about that. I wonder how different this would have sounded had they gotten a small quartet for the harmony rather than the auto-tuned Uki-Shiinas, but hey, the band is finally taking a big step in the right direction FINALLY, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is the one of the few out and out experimental things since Virgin Line’s Souretsu and Gunjo and I couldn’t be happier to hear it.

As the album progresses, it sounds like band becomes more and more interested in playing as a band, trying new things, and most importantly, performing songs (rather than parts which was a big knock on Variety.) Progress isn’t pretty, and this album isn’t pretty even in its struggle. The listener has to struggle with the songs at times. The album opens with a song that is alluding to the closer but I’m not sure has an identity of its own. Denpa is a really good song, but contrasts so much with Ikiru. The next two songs are so aimless the album really falls off the . I think with Foul and onwards the album does find a center but even then I’m left to ponder if some of the songs don’t sound quite similar, like maybe there are really only 5 or 6 songs here. Senkou Shoujo is outright puzzling. Then I wonder if Sweet Spot and Kimaru clouding my judgment on the rest of the album. If Sweet Spot was Karada and Kimaru was just Ikiru would I look less kindly on some of the shortcomings on some real “almost there” songs like Noriki and Utenkekkou. You know, I would have been happy with Ikiru if the band kept it up and just ended before the instruments or at least kept it operatic all the way through. Of course, I wish there was more experimental stuff, but I am happy that there was some at all and got a really great track or two out of it and really put a pleasing coating on the album as a whole.

The frustrating thing with Jihen is that Sports really sounds like a band still coming together. 10 years ago Shiina and Kameda were already making much stronger music all around. It’s tough as a fan to move backwards like that, like watching your favorite all star athlete get injured and practically have to relearn their sport. That’s how I feel listening to new TJ stuff. Whatever the reason, Sports is improvement. Better than JCHI, better than Variety, maybe even better than SG and Rashipoki. I don’t know if Sports as an entire album will reside in my mp3 player or just cherry-pick the songs (which Variety, as it officially stands, does not.) Part of me says yes, Jihen seems to be doing the right thing again, but then again am I ever really going to listen to Sanpukan or Kachi-ikusa? Improvement though means just maybe they do care.

6/10

3 picks: Kimaru, Denpa Tsuuchin, Sweet Spot.

Really, just skip Senkou Shoujo.
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Old 2010.02.15, 08:30 PM   #87
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Thoughtful discussion of the new album. This is a good overall point (with a brutally apt metaphor):

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad View Post
The frustrating thing with Jihen is that Sports really sounds like a band still coming together. 10 years ago Shiina and Kameda were already making much stronger music all around. It’s tough as a fan to move backwards like that, like watching your favorite all star athlete get injured and practically have to relearn their sport. That’s how I feel listening to new TJ stuff.
There may be more to like about "Sweet Spot" than I am giving it credit for, but I can't get past SR's English vocals on this one.
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Old 2010.02.16, 01:16 AM   #88
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Originally Posted by ShadyNook View Post
recreating the vocaloid effect for Ikiru will be something to see live.
don't be disappointed if all you get is 2 mics and a box with some knobs.
or worse, they're not even gonna do the vocals live. They might just do a "reverse karaoke" and play that vocal track like a sample.

On a different note.
Is it acceptable for Tokyo Jihen to be "still coming together"? It's been ... 3 albums. And it's a band of industry professionals not 14 yr olds playing with Ableton Live. Tokyo Jihen was started in 2004 by SR as a "revolution", to change the sound of popular music. Now they sound exactly like the thing they were going to change. 2 legs good?
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Old 2010.02.16, 03:14 AM   #89
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I actually like this album, it's a lot better than Variety, but I also liked Variety too, so I'm not too much of a discerning critic.
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Old 2010.02.16, 05:35 AM   #90
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wow jihad, for the most part I really have no interest in reading everyones in-depth thoughts and would much prefer highlights but I read through like 90% of that and do not regret it. I understand where your coming from completely on almost every point. I'm trying to a be a little bit more positive until I get the physical album and hear it in better quality but I think in 3 months your review will sum up my opinion give or take 2 songs. GOOD CALL on Senkou shojo, its a really good song but it doesnt really belong here. Still better than variety where nothing belonged together.
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