I was really curious about the musical direction when this line-up was announced. I'm very familiar with 4 of their members (Kouryuu, Tetsuya, Ryoga, and Tsurugi). After finally hearing this release I can safely say elements from each musician really shine in this group. Tetsuya (ex. SKULL, ex. MBHI and ex. support for Igaguri Chiba) is more than just a drummer. He's responsible for most of the instrumental compositions for SKULL so I've come to recognize his musical phrasing and production (though I'm not sure how much production plays in this). Tsurugi ( Sadie) offers more melodic guitar leads that aren't too heavy (which worked best with stuff like ice romancer and swallow rain from Sadie. Ryoga I'm familiar with but I was never really in to Born. However, his strategies on vocal phrasing is very similar though it seems he's developed a slightly different approach. The resemblance is still there. Then we get our heavier chugga-chugs that come from Kouryuu (ex. Keith, ex. Dopes, ex. MBHI). I've known of him for some time and i don't even know his full past band list but I knew him the most from MBHI. The song I think that displays all of that properly and in a tasteful manner is "Primary". I think the slower song "Missing Piece" is their weakest song and feels out of place. My favorite song is "埋葬 (maisou)" because it sounds intense and like it'd be a shit ton of fun live. If I'm not mistaken, Ryoga posted on twitter about filming a video so I'm assuming they'll announce another release soon!
I'm really looking forward to following these guys and I'm really glad to see Tetsuya still involved in the scene. He went off the radar somewhat after SKULL aside from doing stuff for Chiba... let's not lose him again. lol.
Great review @Zeus!