Kita Kitsune Monogatari Ashita e IN
Tracklist:
1. Promise
2. Takaramono
3. Up To Date
4. Promise -Instrumental-
5. Takaramono -Instrumental-
1. Promise
A silent piano opens the first track, lonely in its chord progressions until it's joined by the standard instrumentation of the acoustic guitar and violins. Although its framework is somewhat generic ambiental melodies and a simple melodic structure, Aya has succeeded in taming her deep and wild voice into a slower tempo, as it is linked with background vocals, especially in the chorus. Nothing notably eventful happens until, unexpectedly, the middle eight section starts with a too dramatic transition for a soft ballad like this one, but afterwards breaks down into a vocal-only cadence which gains tempo and concludes the song.
Rating: 6 ½
2. Takaramono
Commencing the next song is a quirky, lullaby-like synth and an acoustic guitar, which, contrary to the expectations of another ballad, pick up and gain a mid-tempo dance rhythm. This intro is unusually stretched out, as it slowly builds up to the place where Aya's vocals finally join in with the melody, as if this was an instrumental version halfway, and quite suddenly enter the chorus after only a few lines, without a tie to the previous melody. Accordingly, her voice is being filtered and backed-up all the time to give a dreamy feel to the track, even though it already had a laid-back character. Promise and Takaramono are very similar, but Takaramono takes the win for that slight dash of originality not present in the A-side.
Rating: 7
3. Up To Date
Wrapping up the single with a third song, a fast, impending intro sets off and turns into a cheerful, rocky guitar chord swap. After two more J-pop oriented songs, it's welcome to hear her main style again with this kind of an uplifting rock track, which carries the anison atmosphere with it. Even though the background vocals are over-layered so much they sound almost like a male voice, Aya lets her full strength loose, as she climbs to bigger heights and hits multiple vibrato in the duration of the song. It's not one of her best yet, but Up To Date does carry a pleasant sound of her past.
Rating: 7
Ever since her label shift, Aya hasn't gotten a single anime tie-in, which reflects in how her songs are mostly turning out lately; recycled and cliche (Hoshikuzu Garandou is excluded from this, fortunately), with an occasional return to her old style.
My overall rating is: 7.
Will I return for an another listen: No.
The comment box doesn't bite; be careful when feeding it, though.
I wonder if Aya simply has never recovered from her sex scandal (which means my dream of her ever guesting in the Pokemon anime will never come true). She went from being Japan's biggest seiyuu to a has-been faster than you can say Endless Eight. She really needs to try and re-establish herself if she ever wants her seiyuu and/or music career to recover.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Promise only sold around 1500 copies in Japan. To think that her singles used to sell 20k+, that's an extremely poor performance. How the mighty have fallen.
I still hope her career can recover, given that she used to be my idol...
Only 1500 copies is expected when you've got such generic music, but her previous two singles weren't that bad, and actually showed signs of recovery.
DeleteEven so, her mini album was really cool and shows that she still has that spark she had since the beginning. I haven't heard this single. But this shows that Aya still has it.
ReplyDeleteI did like her mini album actually, the only flaw being that there was little variety between the songs.
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