[Review] Kiyoharu- Under the Sun

 

Tracklist:

1.walk on the moon

2. Judie

3. Law's (new take)

4. Yesterday

5. The Sun

6. Ryuusei

7. Veronica

8. Namida ga Afureru

9. Alice

10. Messiah

11. Under the Sun

 

 

 

walk on the moon is an intro song. I ususally don't talk about intro songs for very
long because they're just that, an intro song. They let you in on the mood and feel of
the ablum but usually there isn't any real merit to the song itself. In this case
there aren't any extended lyrics, there aren't a lot of instruments present, as far
I'm concerned it doesn't make that big of an impact on the album either way. The tune
is catchy.

As for Judie, I've been hearing a lot of this Miyavi-esque guitar lately, it appeared on
Screw's newest single Xanadu on their song Zowie as well. Now I say Miyavi-esque
because he's the only one I've heard play this style of guitar consistently, not
that he's the only person I've ever heard do it, I just want to make that clear before
somebody yells at me. And I think the guitar style works really well with the tone of
this song, especially with the scratchy screams he's throwing in, and it gives the
song a real fast-paced, energetic feel.

I'll be honest I don't really like the new version of Law's, and it's not
because I think the song is bad, it's just that I hold a gigantic bias towards
the original version. Law's is like in my top two songs by Kiyoharu (his solo work
anyway), it's Crow and then Law's and I was pretty disappointed that he remade this
song. There actually aren't a ton of differences, he basically took the "eyes,
follow me" lyrics and added it to the sections that had only been music before that.
Other things I noticed were that he sings some of the word on a different
rythm (the eyes follow me part for instance)and some of the lyrics were a bit
more distinguishable in the original. Anyway, my point is I prefer the original.

Moving on.

I really, really enjoy Yesterday. It's one of my favorite songs on this album. All
of the sounds in the intro are great, and I like that they remain present under the
music through out the entirety of the song. The beat and main riff of the song are
really ear-catching. The guitar solo, while it doesn't present anything particularly
spectacular, it is done very well. There's even an extra guitar riff towards the end,
at about 3:58, that sounds great underneath the lyrics. I just love the whole feeling
of this song.

The Sun is another good song. The mixture of synth effects and guitar is fantastic,
in fact it's probably the most memorable part of the song for me. 1;54 to 2:11 is a
great example of this. The lyrics and music have a great catch to them, and I just
really enjoy all the different elements of this track.

The music to Ryuusei reminds me just a tiny bit of the song Crow. They both have that
slow, sad yet hopeful melody going on, I hear the similarity the most at the introduction of
the song. I've already mentioned that Crow is one of my all time favorites by
Kiyoharu, so for that reason alone I like this song. I do think this track is very
pretty, the underlying guitar line with the combination of the drums really enhances
the beauty of the track.

I'm super impressed with the guitar on Veronica, and it's probably the best on this album.
I really love the addition of that hard-strummed spanish style guitar.There's this great dual
guitar line happening with the lead and rhythm guitars, it's like the spanish style guitar
rides out underneath a fantastic lead guitar solo, and I can't get enough of it, honestly.

I'm a huge sucker for the addition of piano especially in a rock song. Namida ga afureru
is more of a ballad like song and I wish there was some harder guitar or a solo to set off
the piano but I do still really like this track. On the plus side the drums are much more
apparent here, which I'm always a fan of, and Kiyoharu's vocals seems especially good on this
track.

I adore the intro to Alice, The music and beat to this track have a very sexy and seductive
feel for me, which I don't think I've ever said about a song before, which I find very
interesting in itself. But then there are a lot of other additions to the song which I find
rather surprising, for example the addition of the strings or the marching band style drums.
I wouldn't say this is a particularly great track but I think the uniqueness factor really
draws me in.

Messiah doesn't so a whole lot for me. By now I'm a bit tired of hearing slower, ballad like
songs. I do like the long drawn out guitar notes and the synth notes that again make an
appearance here. I don't really have any feelings either way, it's a decent track.

and last but not least, Under the Sun. At first I thought, seriously another long slow song,
but it is broken up by a slightly harder chorus, with a very nice drum beat I might add. I
was hoping there would be some harder music during the instrumental section, I thought it
was leading up to that, but then it just continued where it left off.  I feel like this is
almost a continuation of Messiah, parts of the music are pretty similar. I'm not really
attached to this track.

. I liked this album so much more than I thought would. One of the best things about it is that
A lot of different music, especially guitar, styles were used in this album. And
all of them were done exceptionally well. I think that if more of an upbeat tempo had been
kept up through the end of the album, instead of having all slower songs, I would have been
even more impressed with Under the Sun.

 

 

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★

Vocals: ★ ★ ★½

 Instrumentation: ★ ★★