SwampMan

Listened to this song once, and didn't feel the need to listen to it again. Predictable, bland and formulaic. The message it tries to convey is meaningful, more so for a certain part of their fan base but in my opinion this song doesn't have anything else going on worth mentioning other than that. I'm not implying they should strive for a more "rock" sound but for better music (it could be with more electro elements or whatever they want). Unfortunately this is in no way better than what they made in the past. I'm not hearing this "maturity" many are pointing out, at least not compostion/songwriting-wise and it certainly doesn't bode well for the upcoming album, happy to be proven wrong though.

I agree, the language barrier is a huge factor but not the only one. Wanting to understand what the song is about/lyrics is relevant mostly to native/english speakers, but what about the rest of the world? I'm gonna take my country as an example (Italy), the vast majority of people here have very limited english knowledge to say the least (familiarity with the english language will be different from country to country), they do not actually understand 95% of the words they hear in the songs they so much love. I've tested this numerous times with different people of all ages, yet songs sung in english are fine. As another example let's think about the huge surge of latino/reggaeton music in recent years, how much do non-spanish speakers understand? I'm gonna take a guess and say very little, yet people all around the world seem to be enjoying them regardless. When I pointed this out the only motivation that was given to me was that japanese music "sucks", despite me proposing different genres from VK and songs that were either very similar to western music or more "exotic" (in an attempt to capture their interest).

Had to be in Milan... never a japanese band that comes to Rome . Wish I could go but 600km of distance makes it a costly trip.

What the hell... I'm at a loss of words. RIP.

I don't have a cd/flac rip to compare it against so the slight edge the hi-res has is the usual difference between an mp3/flac. Talking about hi-res music in general I do admit I can hardly ever hear any notable, if at all, differences between a normal flac and a 24bit one, 9 out 10 times it sounds the same to my ears. With some recordings I've listened to I had the feeling I could hear something more than the usual, could've been just a placebo effect though. The better audio quality is there but our physical limitations don't exactly allow us to perceive said quality, maybe some can more than others but I'm not one those with super hearing. I have a decent entry-level stereo system (2 monitor audio bronze 6 speakers+marantz 6005) but I can almost never tell the difference and I don't care. As you said if you can get 24/96 why not? xD

It sounds very similar, it's not a mindblowing difference and I can hear it mostly if I focus; during normal listening when I'm not paying much attention but just enjoying the music I can't spot any evident audio quality difference, subtle as it may be it doesn't take away the fact that it's present. Generally speaking there's more overall clarity and fullness to the sound. Still better to have the best quality available, it just makes me feel mentally more at peace xD.

Sounds really awesome. I'mma pre-order this tomorrow. Can't wait to hear the full songs.

I've used both in the past, cdjapan quite a lot actually but amazon is way faster, not to mention they take care of custom charges in advance and somehow these end up being significantly lower than what I used to pay when ordering from cdjapan or hmv. I will wait a bit more, there's still time till the release of said album, hopefully things will go back to normal in the meantime.

So why doesn't amazon.jp allow for avex music releases to be shipped to the west? Just tried to pre-order wagakki band's new album but can't finalize my order unless I change to a japanese address. Some confusion on amazon's side?

And here I was just about to pre-order the upcoming wagakki band album for glorious blu-ray PVs. R.I.P. my wagakki collection.

I'm so hyped for this album, also 15 tracks, it's gonna be awesome.