Volume at Zero. Day 10.

It is not easy to accumulate some time to write about music, and music just keep piling up! So I’ve decided to write about everything I hadn’t written yet. Here we go!

Stereopony

It is a nice band and I enjoyed going through their discography. Since I don’t have much time with all this stuff waiting to be written about, I’ll will speak only of stuff I found noteworthy.
Stereopony really hits me with their singles – most of them either five or four stars, as for A-side song.
“It’s a wild world”, a B-side from “Chiisana Mahou” single nearly gave me a heart attack – this song is used as a transition in Gaijin Kanpai podcast and it really was surprising to stumble upon this song. The song itself doesn’t feel like most of Stereopony songs. It gave me an impression of The Offspring, a solid female-vocals Offspring of their Americana days.
As for five stars for A-song, singles are – “Hitohiro no Hanabira”, “I do it”, “Namida no Mukou” and “Smilife”.

Two albums are nice listen, though the first one, “Hydrangea no Saiteiru”, feels softer and smoother, and I enjoyed it a bit more. It also has a few five-stars no-single songs – “Komorebi no Journey”, “Sweet Bule” and “My mistake”.

But then again, most of the songs are marked as played one time only. Guess nothing certain to say about the albums at this point.

It is a nice band but I can’t listen to it for a long consequent chunks of time. Lead singer vocals feels a little bit off for me. Well, I’m YUI fan after all, I guess.

day after tomorrow – complete Best

Okay, day after tomorrow, misono and someone else, for me at least. I’ve learned about them after one of misono’s first solo singles, that is.
The band is nice and they do a lot of interesting stuff with their music which results in some truly awesome songs, a lot of near-misses and a wholesale of average songs. It is really scary how many songs from this four-disk compilation is three stars.
Yet their five stars are pleasing – “for you”, “Pride”, “High-Spirit”, “Losing myself”, “Where so ever”.
There’s also a bunch of four stars, aforementioned near misses.

And as for “Losing myself” – I will be joining them together with “Oval”, I really want one big song with an awesome intro.

Abe Mao – Su.

This album is a roller coaster. I can’t describe it’s awesomeness, it starts fast, then slows down, goes into acoustics and drives back to insane speeds. The last song, “Hikari (+1)”, is such a perfect choice to end the album. When I listened to this album with an iPod in my pocket, with this song I actually understood that the album is over.
I’ll be getting a hard copy of this into my collection and also I’ll be listening to more Abe Mao.

AKB48 – Koo ni Ita Koto

Okay, I don’t really want to write anything about them. It is probably a nice album, but way to many vocal units per song. I don’t like visual side of AKB48 as well.
In the middle of the album thing get a little interesting, but nothing that I would extensively care about.

BARBEE BOYS – freebee

Second album of this band. No matter how much I love them, this album doesn’t feel that strong and awesome, at least after single walkthrough. But I’ll give it another shot.

Biyuuden – Ai Suite Room Number 1

Ahh, Biyuuden. Their official English title is v-u-den, and it is bullshit. So Biyuuden it is, as far as I am concerned.
They were one of my first idol groups and I like them a lot, even if they are an squired taste.
Their first album is short – 8 tracks with intro and outro included. It is short and there’s nothing in it for me except for Tea Break.

Biyuuden – v-u-den Single Best 9 Vol. 1 Omaketsuki

This one, however, is completely different. It starts strong and have all the songs that matter on it. Well, it IS single compilation after all.
“JaJa Uma Paradise” song was nauseating at first, but somehow I grew to like it and it is scary.

While I am talking about Biyuuden, I would like to introduce to the world an idea to shoot Ishikawa Rika.
I would murder for Okada/Miyoshi duo, but I guess I have to settle with their photobook without Ishikawa, since the trio is disbanded. Sigh.

Edguy – Savage Poetry

Listened to both original and remastered albums. Original feels weird and remaster is actually good. I love listening to different versions of songs back to back and compare the feelings they give off.
I’ll write about Edguy in-depth some other time. Spoiler alert – they’re awesome.

Minamino Yoko – Virginial

I can’t say anything about this album. I hits the extremes of soft vocals of 80s and it makes it hard to evaluate anything. I have one four-stars song only at this point.
I’m not giving up on Minamino though.

Pain of Salvation – Road Salt One

And I am finally on my last album for this evening.
It is solid stuff as an album experience, to go from song one to song the last without any breaks is a pleasure. But even breaking it up to songs – “Sisters” are extremely awesome, so if “Curiosity”, so is “Road Salt”.
By the overall impression I can compare it to Abe Mao’s album – it is just as nicely structured. The main distinction is that “Su.” is very varied and “Road Salt One” have a theme and this theme goes silver lining through the whole album.

And that’s finally it for today. I do not make announcements for the stuff I have in queue, but since I cannot imagine my life without music – more is surely to come.