Alice Nine - "9"

[Maiku 4]

I just started listening to this album and I'm on the second track and this shit is amazing so far. I can not handle it. I feel like this album may be Alice Nine's homage to アリス九號.. Ahahaha. For real. This shit is PURE Alice Nine. It is an embodiment of everything there is to love about them. I feel like that is the symbolism behind the album name. (I also wanna state that their tour name Court of Nine sounds so cool. ;O; Ahaha.) I feel like this album is a reflection of the band's core sound and emotional quality they embodied from the beginning of their music career. The album is nostalgic of all their previous eras. Some of the songs are not as strong as others, like Niji no Yuki. But it does sound better after hearing all the other tracks on the album. All the songs just resonate as an Alice Nine song. The album is amazing and the songs are great. This album will fit nicely among their other releases. Like always with this band, I'm excited for their next release. It'll probably trump GEMINI. Over All: 9.7/10

Heavenly Arc: DANK drums that blend with sweet bass and even sweeter guitar. Then Shou's singing comes in and this song is great. :'D A very nice Alice Nine song. 8.7/10

The Arc: Awesome guitar rock song. Shou's English is awesome and completely understandable. Fuck yeah. :'D 9.3/10

GALLOWS: Lovely. Chuggy guitars and awesome drums. It's like a love song from Alice Nine to all their Alice Nine hard-rock songs~. OMG. ;O; <3 9.4/10

Hanagasumi: Niji no Yuki makes sense after this song I feel like. It's almost like Niji no Yuki with a darker feel. I really dig it. Should have been the single winter ballad instead of Niji no Yuki. 10/10

BLUE FLAME: now this song. It reminds me so much of a bunch of their other songs. Like the previous three songs have. It's definitely Alice Nine BUT it's just not that great. In this album though it feels like it's a lot better.

Hello, World: Sick funky guitar work with talking layered over it? Fuck yeah. Shou sings a random verse and then is followed by more speaking. It's kind of getting old ahahaha. I need to get better at Japanese. LOL. This song reminds me a lot of the Vandalism era. It's got the feel of WWW and other songs from the album. This whole album gets me so nostalgiac and yet gives me some new songs that make me feel that way. So I'm happy with it. It's really a great album. I'm so excited for what's next. 9/10

Niji no Yuki: Seriously I hated this song when it came out but it makes sooo much more sense among the other tracks of the album. It's kind of an awkward transition from Hello, World. The song sounds pretty and the intro is still really neat.

Linear: Energetic rocky guitars dash into your ears and then Shou's voice soars into action with a weird effect to it ahaha. Probably the most Elvis Nine-y song on the album. I don't have much to say about it. 9/10

Apocalypse [it's Not the End]: Sick drums and like... some kind of flutey thing. Shou's voice sounds husky at the beginning but it's kind of cool. Woah~! This song is sweet as fuck. Probably my favorite from the album. Fuck yeah. 999999999999999/10

Heart of Gold: This song is just. It reminds me of stuff like Blue Planet, Number Six, etc. And captures the same essence effectively. A lot of people like it but. I dunno. Lackluster is the word that comes to mind when I think of this song. It's probably alright live.

Subete e: The song kind of reminds me of a marching band song at first. Ahaha. And then BAM it's amazing awesome guitar work and fuck yeah drums. One of the best songs on the album. I'm reminded of Tsubasa, The Beautiful Name, Cross Game, and other songs like that. Even the PV is reminiscent. Love this song so much. 999999/10

So there you go. I wasn't expecting them to do something as AMAZING as GEMINI. This album seems like an interlude between whats to come and I am sure it's going to blow us all away much like GEMINI did. "9" is a natural Alice Nine album. It seems like they weren't trying to out do themselves or trying to create the best album ever, it's like they were just writing music and this is what came out. All the songs are so perfectly Alice Nine and I'm happy with the album. I am already dying from anticipation to see what comes next.

[madygrain 515]

Honestly, after a frist listen, I can not say I am really impressed. It has good stuff in it but nothing conects with me at all. I also feel the album is quite rigid in therms of mood creating. Songs do not feel different from each other at all. Some may like this thematic and coherent style of album, but I prefer having a more varied repertoire of songs. GEMINI was also bold in style but showed off different kinds of sounds. I can understand this CD is more like a "definition album" where the bands shows their own bold personality but personalities tend to have refinements. 9 seems to fall on the monochrome side, sadly. I will do a song by song review later on for sure but for now I would give this CD between 7 and 8. I can not skip the overall quality of the CD despite it's dull variety.

[ShanethVarosa 1209]

Wrote a full review on my tumblr: ShanethVarosa.Tumblr.com

But, for those of you who couldn't care less:

My basic thoughts are that the album is fucking amazing, save for the average singles that were served to us.

Really Really Fucking LOVED: Linear, Hanagasumi, Heavenly Tale, The Arc, Apocalypse (It's Not the End)

Liked a lot: Gallows, Subete e

Didn't like as much: Heart of Gold, Blue Flame, Niji no Yuki

Special song I need to bring up: Hello, World

Here's why: What the hell was this? I hate that I can't like it more, but there's this one part... It's like the very beginning and it's repeated once or twice throughout the song... With the guitars? It's just kinda weird and messy compared to the rest. And then the fact that he speaks the verses just doesn't sit well with me... but then DAT CHORUS. It's fucking brilliant! I wish I didn't hate everything else about it. Oh, but the end was really really well composed too... Ugh, mixed feelings are mixed.

[dannemannen 69]

I really enjoyed this album as a whole, but the only two songs that i felt "oh shit" are hanagasumi and subete he.

Best songs on the album, rest is ok. 7/10

[doaseternity6 93]

So there you go. I wasn't expecting them to do something as AMAZING as GEMINI. This album seems like an interlude between whats to come and I am sure it's going to blow us all away much like GEMINI did. "9" is a natural Alice Nine album. It seems like they weren't trying to out do themselves or trying to create the best album ever, it's like they were just writing music and this is what came out. All the songs are so perfectly Alice Nine and I'm happy with the album. I am already dying from anticipation to see what comes next.

This pretty much sums up my feelings. Overall I think it's a solid album that's most effective as a whole, weakest songs are easily the singles but even in the context of the album it lifts them up a bit. Didn't expect it to top Gemini but it also exceeded my expectations in how good it is. Totally hit the nail on it feeling like an interlude as although it doesn't top the last album it also doesn't feel like a step back imo, definitely an in-transition. Favorite songs = Heavenly Tale, The Arc, Hanagasumi, hello, world (all the instrumental noodling and shou talk = hell yea for me ~) and Apocalypse [iNTE] (though for the life of me i cannot name the song the vocal melody at the beginning of each verse reminds me of danggit). Is that like all the new ones? lol oops. My only reaaaaalll reaaaaallllllll complaint is that the transition from hello, world to niji no yuki is very awkward but other than that I'm reasonably pleased.

[Pandabear 414]

Gemeni Shemeni this album does trumps GEMENI. An album which I enjoyed, but still think it was way overhyped. What’s more impressive is the time 9 was made after GEMENi. Which was just little over a year. The cohesive nature of 9 is more of a strength than a weak point in my opinion. The superior composition and musicianship the members have acquired over the years really shows. I feel the songs are really well made and refined and don’t suffer from being over composed. And there’s enough interesting sounds going on to keep them from being stale. Like the intro drums on heavenly tale, or the keyboards, double bass and Shou’s vocal deliverance on the Arc which gives it a very power metal sound at times.

The only downside I found on 9 was Blue Flame and Niji no Yuki. I didn’t think they weren’t as strong as all the other songs , but I’ve grown to like them.

This is their best work to date IMO.

8.5/10

Could have been a 9/10 if it wasn't for some weaker songs.

[Augie1995 325]

This album was top notch for me. In less than 3 whole listens of the entire album, I ranked it at the top of my Alice Nine release, loads better than GEMINI. This wasn't much of a concept album like GEMINI was but this album seemed it was them trying to show off their personalities and potential in these songs. The riffs are fast, the guitar solos are even more beautiful and insane than before with these tapping and shredding that at time remind me of Versailles, and Shou's voice sounds so much better than that past singles. I love every single song on this album, minus Niji no Yuki and Heart of Gold(slightly) so I can't say which are my favorites but the ones I listen to the most are The Arc, Hello World, Gallows, and Apocalypse (INTE). Alice Nine is definitely an album band.

[LIDL 692]

Well, it's alright. Music's good and Shou sang well.

But overall, the album kinda forgettable for me.

Since i had to replayed the album just to review.

I was having this moment where i asking myself, "how's the last song sound like again?"

This has been repeating until the album finished.

So for that very reason, it's kinda bad, sorry guys. :<

[Jigsaw9 6783]

I was really looking forward to this, and the album met my expectations.

I really loved GEMINI, so I was curious where they will go next with their sound. This one seems a bit of a continuation of that more refined songwriting and execution with more compact/stand-alone type of songs. The starting track really sets the mood (reminded me a bit of LUNA SEA at points actually, as did some other parts on the album), as well as the closer gives a great example of the overall sound and feeling of the album; I love these two tracks. My other favorite from the new songs is the Arc: badass riffing and all around kickass track! Actually, most of the new songs were okay or better, so I'm pleased. Still not liking Niji no yuki, and still thinking Heart of Gold is a bit boring but whatever, the rest is pretty solid stuff.

Overall as much as I loved GEMINI, I think I may end up liking this album just as much (but VANDALIZE still remains my fave A9 album). Good job!

[Manabu 144]

Can't say I enjoyed as much as I thought I would. It's a decent album but it doesn't do anything spectacular and at times I found myself skipping tracks purely because they got boring, I didn't expect anything like Gemini but I was expecting them to at least be kinda adventurous. At times it comes off as a bland and just a standard alice nine album which I guess they were going for. I really enjoyed Gallows and Subete e but I found a lot of the solos ruined the songs, too many of them that sounded exactly the same, the solo in the arc comes in awkwardly and doesn't get any better whilst the solo hanagasumi doesn't reflect the mood of the song at all.

I'll give it a 6.5/10. Not a great album but in no means bad

[azureskies89 0]

Am I the only one that LOVED Hello World? I though it was really different and adventurous, and Saga's(yes, that's SAGA not Shou) talking really makes the song IMO. His tone and the lyrics remind a lot of a poem reading (Interesting trivia- since Saga is doing the speaking parts and guitar for this song, Tora will be playing bass live♥ )

Other tracks that really stood out to me: The Arc (gawwwd that twin guitar solo *0*), Hanagasumi (that bridge..is magic *goosebumps*), and Subete e (makes me feel warm and smily like Blue Planet)

Overall I thought it was a really amazing album, and I really loved hearing the members talk about each track when they did the album preview on NicoNama last week~ it gave the album a lot more depth and I think I can appreciate/notice a lot of things I wouldn't have been able to pick up on otherwise I don't think I could pick which album I like better, this or Gemini <3

[Licio123 181]

A bit late but...

Loved "9". Not as great as GEMINI, but there are lot's os songs to be enjoyed here.

My favorites are Apocalypse (just plain fun), BLUE FLAME (awesome all-around) and Subete e (beautiful closing song, emotional too).

Ones that deserve a listen too are Heart of Gold, Hello, World, Hanagasumi, Galloes and Heavenly Tale.

The other aren't bad but jsut aren't on par with the goodness of those.

Yet again, Alice Nine delivers. one of my favorite recent bands.