Artist: Kamijo
Title: Royal Blood~Revival Best~
1. Emblem
2. Imperial Concerto
3. 薔薇は美しく散る (Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru)
4. Aristocrat's Symphony
5. 蝶の花 (Chou no Hana)
6. Audrey
7. この世で一番美しい薔薇よ (Kono Yo de Ichiban Utsukushii Bara Yo)
8. 冬東京 (Fuyu Tokyo)
9. Heel
10. God Palace
11. Royal Blood
Rating: | Looking back with rose colored glasses
In celebration of his 20th year performing, Kamijo released two new albums: 20th Anniversary All Time Best～革命の系譜～ (Kakumei no Keifu, a collection album of songs from his past bands) and Royal Blood ～Revival Best～. While an anniversary collection is not surprising, as many big artists do this at important landmarks in their careers, an album of songs from older bands is fairly unusual. A collection of songs from old bands that are also completely rewritten is even rarer. Royal Blood ～Revival Best～ is a gift to long-time fans in more ways than one, and it breathes new life into the classics Kamijo has written.
As shown by the tracklist above, Royal Blood is a mixture of songs from Lareine, Versailles, New Sodmy, and 3 (and a half) new original tracks. All of the older songs are more than remade—they’re reinterpreted. For example, “Aristocrat’s Symphony” has been stripped down of it’s grandiose symphonic metal roots and has been turned into a slower ballad accompanied completely by orchestral arrangement, whereas “薔薇は美しく散る” was turned into a fast paced, yet flowery, metal song. The degree in which songs were reimagined varies greatly, however. For example, the new version of “God Palace” has very little different in arrangement aside from the guitar solo, which was made to sound a lot more like a solo that could be found on the Jealousy album. While much of the instrumental parts are largely the same, it is fairly obvious that the lead guitar is not Hizaki as the guitar timbre changed and the general delivery is less show-y. That doesn’t make Kamijo’s entrance after the solos are over, with a resounding “WATASHI WAAAAAAAA,” any less stupendous.
Of all the reimaginations, “薔薇は美しく散る,” “冬東京,” and “Imperial Concerto” were my favorites. As mentioned above, the first has been reinterpreted to be more metallic than the orginal without really losing much of it it’s original flare. My only gripe with this song is that he removed the musical equivalent to the gaussian blur filter used in this ABBA music video that used to grace the middle of the song. I’ve also added a new favorite Lareine song to my repertoire, which is 蝶の花 (Chou no Hana). I love the gentleness of this song and its simple beauty in the chorus. After listening to the original, it is safe to say this is more or less just an updated version—no crazy metal renditions of this song were done. I will say, though, that I was floored by the new version of 冬 東京 (Fuyu Tokyo). The new introduction is just magical and the overall rendition just brings this song to life in a completely new way. These are all examples of remakes done right—what I want are old tracks remade in a new way and Kamijo gave me exactly what I was looking for.
Viewing this album through a critical lens, it is possible to find several areas in which Royal Blood could have done better. For me, most of the shortcomings were in the new songs. It took a lot of thinking to determine if this was because I was just so impressed with the remakes that any of his new material just would easily be outshone, or if the newer tracks were actually just sub-par for what I was expecting. In the end, it was a fair mix of both for me. “この世で一番美しい薔薇よ” (Kono Yo de Ichiban Utsukushii Bara yo), as the first victim, left me unimpressed. The title itself was too close to as “薔薇は美しく散る” for me and thematically “the prettiest rose in the world” just seems trite at this point. This, coupled with a highly predictable chord progression in the main melody, didn’t leave me wanting to wake up and smell the roses.
“Heel,” another new addition, was more ~experimental~; here, Kamijo tried to incorporate some tango elements into his normal compositional style with mixed results. What was odd about this was that the melody during the verse dragged on for way too long. This melody is a super drawn out vocal line where he bellows dangerously close to being dissident to the rest of the music before gingerly teetering back to safety, then repeating another two or three times. It’s like watching that game where people stab a knife in the space between their fingers quickly to freak out their mom. In this situation, I’m that mom and I am very concerned. Daredevil party tricks aside, this song does have a really nice chorus. I usually skip to it when listening to the song, though.
The last new song is the title track of the album, “Royal Blood.” It originally starts off like some sort of epic symphonic piece, bold and bombastic like “Aristocrat’s Symphony” was (the original). To my surprise, it eventually mellows out to become the perfect balance of mixing all of his past bands together –Versailles guitar work and symphonic elements, Lareine guitar and vocal harmonies, and something from that one New Sodmy song, I guess. Did you guys know he was also in a band named New Sodmy? They were a thing for a bit and made music or whatever. Yep. So, basically, this song is this album’s version of “片手に夢を持つ少女” (Katate ni yume wo motsu shoujo) —an up-tempo hype song, probably used as an encore closing.
All in all, Royal Blood was a great album solely for the excitement of waiting to hear old songs done anew. I was pretty bummed that Metamorphose got cut, and kind of surprised Fiancailles wasn’t included (unless he didn’t actually write that, but it was objectively Lareine’s best selling song). Maybe in the future we’ll get some more Revival Best songs, but for now, I am content with how this played out and fully expect a full effort dedicated to putting out new material soon.
