tracklist:

1. Ame(B)
2. ライトダンス
3. セントレイ
4. ネイティブダンサー

5. minnanouta
6. 雑踏

7. 黄色い車
8. enough
9. 涙ディライト

10. アドベンチャー
11. human


well i'm sure nobody will be interested in this. it's too ulu le lah!
but still, you should be! if you're looking for new stuff, you can stay on.

because this album is good.

sakanaction with their latest album, shinshiro.
sakanaction, first and foremost, plays a blend of rock, electronica, and i am told, club and house music. it's nothing i have ever listened to before. the more important thing is that their music is SUPER ADDICTIVE. the tunes stick in your head for hours.
impressions from PVs: the lead singer is really really cool. in that he seems to own every piece of music he sings, and drawls his parts in the most delicious way :D, how he's expressionless all the time (ah, aim of all decent bands), and it's just cooooool. additional bonus: he can really sing! i was converted immediately. must go find out what's his name.

down to it!

Ame (B) opens with the whole band going "A-ME" in harmony. oh that's another thing i like about them - ALL of them can sing and it's wonderful when they sing in 5 parts (i think). it's like having an acapella band! :DDD anyway though it's the intro it still managaed to lodge itself in my head, after only 2 or 3 times. the lyrics are simple, all sung in chorus, and the main star is all the electronica, which is weird and wonderful in its own way. haven't been listening to this much, though.

ライトダンス is a wacky song. i don't know how to place it. it sounds distinctively chinese, somehow, and the verses are ... jumpy. however, the chorus is pure gold: there's this line repeated 4 times and sung in octaves (でも明日が見えなくて) and the melody of the chorus is amazing, really. plus lead-san sings it like "oh, this is a piece of cake" which sounds amazing as well. the middle part after that is weird, but then the chorus comes and nullifies everything else. i could play that chorus on loop for a whole day.

セントレイ lives up to its name - i can see why it got #1 on oricon. everything about it is perfect. my favourite part is the 2nd verse, where there's this synthesised choir going papapapapapaapapaapapaa and it's niceeeeeeeeeeee! the other electronica stuff go well with the melody, too. and then the chorus is a big mass of all the motifs, and generally pleasing. altogether, you get a song which makes you want to put on repeat and don't mind hearing over and over again. absolute favourite.

ネイティブダンサー
 is another favourite. lead sounds really good here in the start. the pv is just him dancing with this pair of glow-in-the-dark nike shoes, but he pulls it off because he's cool enough. the chorus is so-so and the best thing about this song is the verses. i think this is the song that made me go crazy over the lead's voice.

minnanouta is an instrumental which is a little messy and which i don't really dig, so. there's the sound of an office in the background. its not in my mp3 because estate space is scarce. interestingly, it was composed by the whole band. which is why it's called minnanouta (everyone's song). =.=

雑踏 starts off with the same background noise as minnanouta, and turns into verses with monotone guitars and a not-bad melody. i like how the bass enters, very late into the song. then some guitar wails and the chorus starts, which is quite nice and bouncy. the verses are a bit too long but the chorus makes up for it. and then there's this wild rock part after the chorus that i like, though it's just "woah, woah, woah~".

黄色い車 - hmm this is the opposite. it starts out nicely with interesting accompaniment, and an interesting verse. then the chorus is kind of screwed, i don't like it. it's a very happy song then the chorus is just random twisting of notes. i listen to it for the intro and verses.

enough is enough. haha. enough is a 2-part song. the intro is quiet and ballad-like, i like the way the lead goes "uso desu ... ka, uso desu." it's wandering and sounds like someone pondering something. then comes the 2nd part which is this upbeat tune with 2 chords which makes you bob your head in time and where the voices go "uwaaaaaa" (really!) and which is also playable for hours. i remembered it for a week after i first heard it. after that there's this wild rock part again where the chords are weird (good weird), then back to the uwaaaaa part which is laced with new electronica motifs, then it dies off and returns to the ballady part. i like~

涙ディライト is a piece with a pop feel, what i really like about this are the 2 motifs in the intro which continue on throughout the song. the melody is groovy, there's no other word for it. i tire easily of the chorus, though. another song to make people dance.

アドベンチャー is really interesting. i think this is closest to club/techno music in the whole album. the beats are heavy and there's the syncopated rhythm. the verses are delightful, the composing, and the chorus is good as well, just that the bass is very heavy and not good when you are having a pounding headache. nice song to let off steam and scrub your brain blank.

last song, human. human is my second favourite. it's almost completely rock. (haven't forgotten my roots!) the intro has a piano and guitar playing in thirds respectively and together. the effect is an intriguing melody that has taken me weeks to catch. (still haven't completely figured it out yet.) then the verses are sung in octaves again (my favourite, what's more i think the other person in one of the girls!). the chorus is ... rending? maybe a bit emo, and the drums again a little too heavy for my liking, but sakanaction knows how far to go before the listener gets irritated (not like ajikan who can get carried away sometimes). so the effect is muted and catchy. plus nice harmonies after the last chorus. nice nice nice.


i'm not sure how others would take this album (my weird taste in the works), but i find it irresistable and super catchy. definitely will see (or hear) more of this band in the future! I LOVE THE LEAD SINGER'S VOICE I SWEAR.
i'm starting to draw a lot of fishbones around school. need to go and find more sakanaction fans!

tracklist:
01. Gekidou (AwakEVE ver.)　[激動(AwakEVE ver.)]
02. 99/100 Damashi no Tetsu　[99/100騙しの哲]
03. Mikageishi [美影意志]
04. Corona [コロナ]
05. Hanakaku mo Towa no Kanashi [儚くも永久のカナシ]
06. earthy world
07. Hissei Satsuki Prologue [畢生皐月プロローグ]
08. I・Am Riri [アイ・アム　Riri]
09. Koishikute [恋しくて]
10. Forget
11. Just Break The Limit!
12. Waon　[和音]
13. Harujion (2nd-Mix)　[ハルジオン　(2nd-Mix)]
14. YURA YURA
ones in bold are sparkling NEWWWW! :D

I AM HOOKED ON THIS ALBUM!

it takes a while and many listens, but AwakEVE really grows on you. :D
it also sounds stronger and has a hint of angst, at least IMO, because it sounds like UVERworld's reflecting on a lot of stuff in their songs.
cheem, huh.
and it's less pop-y which is a good thing!
oh another thing i like is the lyrics, which make A LOT of sense, and which fit the melodies really well. takuya is amazing. :D

ok!

Gekidou didn't change at all, they just cut of the random noises in front that were in the original track. =.= i don't really listen to it anymore.

99/100 Damashi no Tetsu. oooh this is an interesting one. i first thought it was damn gay the way takuya rapped. then i saw the pv and they looked cool. and suddenly they didn't sound so gay anymore. and then after i got past the rapping the beat is fun and the chorus is fabulous - super catchy and got stuck in my head for a while. i like the last part where they sang in 2 octaves. ^^ honourable mention goes to the pv which suddenly caused the lyrics to make a lot of sense and my impression changed from "gay" to "glam". and it's amazing how they manage to suan the media in their pv AND lyrics! haha. now it's one of my favourite tracks.

Mikageishi is a nice ballad. i think it's nicer than koishikute and kimi no suki na uta anyday. it's simple and the melody is strong, and the syncopation parts at the start are <3! it's the kind of song you won't get sick of even though you think you will. oh and i like the ending chords.

Corona is rock that reminds me of their older style (like colors of the heart and dtecnolife), it's generally good, but it isn't outstanding and so it fades into the normal tracks group after a while because they didn't try much new stuff with this one. Shouldn't listen too much in a day, it's quite easy to get sick of this.

earthy world is very 阳光 and happy, which i didn't really like at first because it sounded a bit too normal - like it's just filling up the gap. it was okay after listening a few more times. but it's not one of my favourites.

Hissei Satsuki Prologue is a weird piece (not in a bad way) and it's more dancepopish. (i keep thinking of space and terra he when i see the title, for some weird reason.) i like the techno bits, though, and the chorus is great! :D (i like the line 「生きるって面倒くさいな」 how true. ;D) the verses sounded a bit like takuya didn't know what to put there so he just reverted to his normal woh-oh-oh-ing thing, so it's a bit empty. but once you start singing it you can't get it out of your head.

I Am Riri IS THE COOLEST TRACK EVER and it's also the first track to get stuck in my head for about a week. it's nothing i've ever heard before, and although it's rap which i shun as a general rule, the chorus owns all and i just totally got addicted because its so emo and angsty and powerful and sad and bliss and legendary at the same time. :D AND THE LYRICS ARE BEAUTIFUL i have never heard such powerful lyrics in my life! (i think they're about a singer who lost her voice and can't sing anymore or something ...) they totally fit the melody and i can feel the sorrow and everything. :D and the front guitar parts are nice too.

Forget goes back to normal UVER style as well, this is a bit more standard and listenable, the melody is quite good. however it's also a forgettable track (pun not intended).

Waon is another amazing piece of composing. usually i skip instumental interludes (it happened with lm.c's) because they don't really have a melody. but the melody for Waon is really powerful as well (it reminded me of potcXD albeit emo version) and THE GUITAR SOLO HAS A FREAKING NICE MELODY WHAT IS THIS MAN. and the slow part in the middle with the 3/4 timing is WONDERFUL the drums reverberate in this DELICIOUS way and the silence is AMAZING and the time signatures are so interesting ahhhh! okay i'm probably not supposed to go so crazy about this track. but don't skip it, give it a serious listen! :D

Harujion is the same, except that some silences and quietness here and there are filled up by dancepop beats. and they added whirring stuff so now it sounds like it's a 16 beat song. just sounds more dancy. i think i prefer the old version, which was good enough in its own way.

YURA YURA ends the whole thing nicely, the last note has a sense of finality and the curtain coming down sort of thing. and it's good in it's own right because the melody's decent. it's relatively normal but i like it better than earthy world or forget.

i've been listening to this on the bus every single morning before the holidays.
^^ there's a lot of new stuff in this album and all the details are worth listening to. and it sounds more mature and real. and shows how UVERworld has improved again (like how the vocals are more stable now). it's also diverse, as usual i suppose. i'm glad they had more singing and minimal rapping (or rather, tolerable rapping) and i hope this continues on for future albums! don't sink back into full rapping tracks again! very very very very nice go and listen!

for the vast majority out there in cyberworld looking for gundam chibis with a white background and not finding them, i give you this!

(warning: super big images if you click! i also have the pdf file, tell me if you want.)




pretty, ain't it! :D