SHADOWPLAY
I felt like I absolutely need to gush about SHADOWPLAY right now.
So, Alice Nine finally started releasing new stuff again this spring, the first of which was their "Daybreak" single in mid-March. And I love that single too, so I'm going to start gushing there.
Daybreak
"Daybreak" is an excellent song, a bit lighter than some of A9's previous stuff, but really a perfect song for them. Despite it being apparently composed by Tora, I keep thinking of how Hiroto adores sunrises/sunsets. The song is very free and joyous and it's just this musical explosion of light. Essentially "Daybreak" sounds like sunlight--the beginning of the song starts out a bit more muted as you see in the video light is just starting to creep across the sky, by the middle it feels like light is surrounding you even as the band is playing in a brightly sunny day in the video, and at the end the music fades down to a muted sound again while the sun sets in the video.
The metaphorical daybreak fits them as a band, too. They've been on a release hiatus (i.e. they just toured and didn't release anything) for about a year, which is sort of like their night, and "Daybreak" is the new dawn for them as a band. After all, "Daybreak" is the first of three singles that will be released in as many months.
Listening to "Daybreak" makes me think of standing on a mountain and shouting and just smiling wide because you're here and you're alive and the sun is shining down on you and how could you not be happy about that? It's a song that's about light and finding light, and I'm very glad this was their opener.
Himitsu
The B-side to "Daybreak", "Himitsu" is a very uncharacteristic song--although Alice Nine tends to change up their style a lot so I guess it's not really uncharacteristic so much as a style different from the ones they've tried so far. It's got an odd little rhythm that almost feels a little Latin, with a bouncy, fun melody that's still slightly dark, enough that I can get a feeling of secrets from it. I think the second strangest thing in this song is the way the melody strings long chains of words together so quickly whereas they tend to usually draw out their syllables a bit longer and/or have shorter lines.
I say "second strangest" because the oddest part of this song is the rapping. Now, I really don't like American rap--I find it repetitive, trashy, and pointless because it's almost always about having lots of cars/money/jewelry/women and how that makes you cool and/or better than everyone else. I tolerate Asian rap, which is usually lighter and usually put into the middle of songs, and usually not just about bling and bitches. That said, A9 doesn't do rap. They've never done rap (because I don't count the screaming as rap), but I actually really like the rap in this song. The reasons are: it's thematically appropriate--Shou half-whispers the rap as though he's telling a secret, it's light enough that it's not jarring, and Shou's voice is just very elegant throughout it. All in all, I count this experiment with rap as a success for them.
Overall, I'd describe this song as odd, but it's grown on me really quickly. It's definitely one for my long list of A9 B-sides that I wish were A-sides.
SHADOWPLAY
And now we move on to "SHADOWPLAY". This is the A-side of their April single, which will be released 4/17. It's really hard for me to articulate the eighty million reasons I love this song, but I'll try. Their songs this time around definitely have a feeling of being more finished than some of the stuff they released previously. I remember someone saying they felt like those songs were a bit raw when released, as though A9 hadn't had enough time to polish them and get comfortable with them before the release. At the time I didn't agree, but while I still love "Blue Flame" and "Subete E", once you compare them to any of the songs we've gotten so far this year, you definitely do see the difference. Every single song from 2013 so far has been polished to perfection.
"SHADOWPLAY" is beautiful. I love every single one of their new looks in this. I love the bird girl--especially that she's not the typical sexy vixen but made up in a very artistic and thematic way--and her shadow-wings that don't exist, as well as the floral theme, although I still feel like they could put more actual plot into the MV. I also really like the eerie parallel with the thin stylized text of SHADOWPLAY at the beginning, and then the same text reflected in the bird girl's all-black eyes at the end. Hiroto's guitar is gorgeous. I love the air of mystery in the song as well. This song is luxurious, indulgent, dark, sumptuous--listening to it you get the feeling of sinking into warm lovely darkness. More than that, this song is classy.
Beyond just the surface prettiness, I absolutely adore how much this song explores everyone's talents. There's a gorgeous guitar solo from Hiroto that he rattles off like it's easycakes, followed by a possibly even lovelier solo from Tora, and then without breaking a sweat they duet. I...have the biggest thing for their duets, I can't even explain. Nao--oh my god, his drumming in this is so excellent. He did mention that because of the way they wrote "Daybreak", he did more pop drumming, which meant generally a more repetitive and less exciting part, but in "SHADOWPLAY" he absolutely gets back everything he missed and more. If you pay attention you can see his sticks flying across the drum set. Shou's singing is excellent, but also he apparently (if reports are to be believed) WROTE THIS SONG. Guys, what. I mean, I liked "Niji no Yuki", personally, but "SHADOWPLAY" pretty much surpasses every song I've ever heard from them.
And on that note, I'm going to now get to Saga. Maybe I'm biased, as someone who plays the piano and loves it, but Saga and the piano was ridiculous. In every way. Saga plays this piano part that sounds both classical and classy, and he does it excellently. He even looks classy with his black suit. Not only that--he plays this super awesome piano part, AND also keeps up his bass part. I knew Saga played keyboard for a few songs before, but this is a whole new level of amazing. If I'm remembering right, he said at the time when he started playing keyboard parts that he was just learning, and if that's true I bow to Saga's ridiculous ability to be that good in so little time. Also, the piano itself has a great classical timbre to it. And finally I have to admit I have a huge weakness for the shots in the MV of him and Shou back to back at the piano. I don't ship any A9 pairings, but that setup is just gorgeous.
On a kind of random note, I was listening through a j-music countdown earlier today where there were snippets of "Tear drop" by RoyZ and "Chimera" by vistlip, and I found them both weirdly similar to things A9 has done. The PV for "Tear drop" looked a lot like a cross between A9's "Jewels" and "Eraser" (the guy with the ankle shackles, the band standing and lying in multicolored flowers, and the girl lying in the flowerbed), although the song style was much softer and more pop than pretty much anything A9 does. "Chimera" just generally makes me think of "Eraser", in both the musical style and the PV setup--aside from the girl in the desert, the "Chimera" PV has the same all white/surrounded by bold-colored flowers setup that "Eraser" used, and the rhythm and light bouncy repetition on the guitar (sorry, I'm bad at explaining, I would probably just sing the thing I'm talking about if I were explaining it in real life) are very similar to "Eraser", even if the melody is different. That's not to say I think vistlip or RoyZ are plagiarizing. Chances are they're not, and I'm totally fine with them having similar stuff, it was just kind of an interesting parallel I noticed.
But the point I meant to go to is that "SHADOWPLAY" is almost like an inversion of "Eraser". Where "Eraser" was all about white everywhere and bright flowers and had a melody that inspired, and was a little bittersweet but hopeful, "SHADOWPLAY" is all black with darker-toned flowers, and the music draws you in and captures you in the darkness. "Eraser" made use of acoustic guitar, but "SHADOWPLAY" makes use of classical piano.
The ultimate point here, anyway, is that I love "SHADOWPLAY" with all my heart, and all of you should go have a listen, if you think you have any chance of liking a jrock song.
So, Alice Nine finally started releasing new stuff again this spring, the first of which was their "Daybreak" single in mid-March. And I love that single too, so I'm going to start gushing there.
Daybreak
"Daybreak" is an excellent song, a bit lighter than some of A9's previous stuff, but really a perfect song for them. Despite it being apparently composed by Tora, I keep thinking of how Hiroto adores sunrises/sunsets. The song is very free and joyous and it's just this musical explosion of light. Essentially "Daybreak" sounds like sunlight--the beginning of the song starts out a bit more muted as you see in the video light is just starting to creep across the sky, by the middle it feels like light is surrounding you even as the band is playing in a brightly sunny day in the video, and at the end the music fades down to a muted sound again while the sun sets in the video.
The metaphorical daybreak fits them as a band, too. They've been on a release hiatus (i.e. they just toured and didn't release anything) for about a year, which is sort of like their night, and "Daybreak" is the new dawn for them as a band. After all, "Daybreak" is the first of three singles that will be released in as many months.
Listening to "Daybreak" makes me think of standing on a mountain and shouting and just smiling wide because you're here and you're alive and the sun is shining down on you and how could you not be happy about that? It's a song that's about light and finding light, and I'm very glad this was their opener.
Himitsu
The B-side to "Daybreak", "Himitsu" is a very uncharacteristic song--although Alice Nine tends to change up their style a lot so I guess it's not really uncharacteristic so much as a style different from the ones they've tried so far. It's got an odd little rhythm that almost feels a little Latin, with a bouncy, fun melody that's still slightly dark, enough that I can get a feeling of secrets from it. I think the second strangest thing in this song is the way the melody strings long chains of words together so quickly whereas they tend to usually draw out their syllables a bit longer and/or have shorter lines.
I say "second strangest" because the oddest part of this song is the rapping. Now, I really don't like American rap--I find it repetitive, trashy, and pointless because it's almost always about having lots of cars/money/jewelry/women and how that makes you cool and/or better than everyone else. I tolerate Asian rap, which is usually lighter and usually put into the middle of songs, and usually not just about bling and bitches. That said, A9 doesn't do rap. They've never done rap (because I don't count the screaming as rap), but I actually really like the rap in this song. The reasons are: it's thematically appropriate--Shou half-whispers the rap as though he's telling a secret, it's light enough that it's not jarring, and Shou's voice is just very elegant throughout it. All in all, I count this experiment with rap as a success for them.
Overall, I'd describe this song as odd, but it's grown on me really quickly. It's definitely one for my long list of A9 B-sides that I wish were A-sides.
SHADOWPLAY
And now we move on to "SHADOWPLAY". This is the A-side of their April single, which will be released 4/17. It's really hard for me to articulate the eighty million reasons I love this song, but I'll try. Their songs this time around definitely have a feeling of being more finished than some of the stuff they released previously. I remember someone saying they felt like those songs were a bit raw when released, as though A9 hadn't had enough time to polish them and get comfortable with them before the release. At the time I didn't agree, but while I still love "Blue Flame" and "Subete E", once you compare them to any of the songs we've gotten so far this year, you definitely do see the difference. Every single song from 2013 so far has been polished to perfection.
"SHADOWPLAY" is beautiful. I love every single one of their new looks in this. I love the bird girl--especially that she's not the typical sexy vixen but made up in a very artistic and thematic way--and her shadow-wings that don't exist, as well as the floral theme, although I still feel like they could put more actual plot into the MV. I also really like the eerie parallel with the thin stylized text of SHADOWPLAY at the beginning, and then the same text reflected in the bird girl's all-black eyes at the end. Hiroto's guitar is gorgeous. I love the air of mystery in the song as well. This song is luxurious, indulgent, dark, sumptuous--listening to it you get the feeling of sinking into warm lovely darkness. More than that, this song is classy.
Beyond just the surface prettiness, I absolutely adore how much this song explores everyone's talents. There's a gorgeous guitar solo from Hiroto that he rattles off like it's easycakes, followed by a possibly even lovelier solo from Tora, and then without breaking a sweat they duet. I...have the biggest thing for their duets, I can't even explain. Nao--oh my god, his drumming in this is so excellent. He did mention that because of the way they wrote "Daybreak", he did more pop drumming, which meant generally a more repetitive and less exciting part, but in "SHADOWPLAY" he absolutely gets back everything he missed and more. If you pay attention you can see his sticks flying across the drum set. Shou's singing is excellent, but also he apparently (if reports are to be believed) WROTE THIS SONG. Guys, what. I mean, I liked "Niji no Yuki", personally, but "SHADOWPLAY" pretty much surpasses every song I've ever heard from them.
And on that note, I'm going to now get to Saga. Maybe I'm biased, as someone who plays the piano and loves it, but Saga and the piano was ridiculous. In every way. Saga plays this piano part that sounds both classical and classy, and he does it excellently. He even looks classy with his black suit. Not only that--he plays this super awesome piano part, AND also keeps up his bass part. I knew Saga played keyboard for a few songs before, but this is a whole new level of amazing. If I'm remembering right, he said at the time when he started playing keyboard parts that he was just learning, and if that's true I bow to Saga's ridiculous ability to be that good in so little time. Also, the piano itself has a great classical timbre to it. And finally I have to admit I have a huge weakness for the shots in the MV of him and Shou back to back at the piano. I don't ship any A9 pairings, but that setup is just gorgeous.
On a kind of random note, I was listening through a j-music countdown earlier today where there were snippets of "Tear drop" by RoyZ and "Chimera" by vistlip, and I found them both weirdly similar to things A9 has done. The PV for "Tear drop" looked a lot like a cross between A9's "Jewels" and "Eraser" (the guy with the ankle shackles, the band standing and lying in multicolored flowers, and the girl lying in the flowerbed), although the song style was much softer and more pop than pretty much anything A9 does. "Chimera" just generally makes me think of "Eraser", in both the musical style and the PV setup--aside from the girl in the desert, the "Chimera" PV has the same all white/surrounded by bold-colored flowers setup that "Eraser" used, and the rhythm and light bouncy repetition on the guitar (sorry, I'm bad at explaining, I would probably just sing the thing I'm talking about if I were explaining it in real life) are very similar to "Eraser", even if the melody is different. That's not to say I think vistlip or RoyZ are plagiarizing. Chances are they're not, and I'm totally fine with them having similar stuff, it was just kind of an interesting parallel I noticed.
But the point I meant to go to is that "SHADOWPLAY" is almost like an inversion of "Eraser". Where "Eraser" was all about white everywhere and bright flowers and had a melody that inspired, and was a little bittersweet but hopeful, "SHADOWPLAY" is all black with darker-toned flowers, and the music draws you in and captures you in the darkness. "Eraser" made use of acoustic guitar, but "SHADOWPLAY" makes use of classical piano.
The ultimate point here, anyway, is that I love "SHADOWPLAY" with all my heart, and all of you should go have a listen, if you think you have any chance of liking a jrock song.