Yadora 32 Posted April 10, 2013 This is Kra's latest album, and personally I absolutely adore it. Iwrote a review for it right after I got the album, so I'll just pastethat one here. 1. Clown's parade This is just an instrumental intro song, but it's extremely catchy and pulls you into the album right away. It starts with marching drums, andthen a very circus-like melody kicks in. Kra really seems to have atalent for making intro songs, GURICO's intro was also amazing. Eventhough it's just an intro song, I consider still consider it anextremely good, worthy song. 2. Alice This was sort of the main song, the one that was previewed all the time to promote the album. So I'd heard it a few times already in varyingqualities before hearing it on the album. It's honestly a great, typicalKra song. It's cheerful but a little bit melancholic, and has amemorable chorus. The piano parts and the part near the end where Keiyuutalks instead of singing make it unique. 3. Bastard Okay, so I have a weakness for cool bass lines, therefore this song automatically wins. It's not just that though, this is a great upbeatrock song. It's not unique, Kra has done this many times before, butit's done well and... you know... that bass line... I also love theguitar solo in this song, and I don't usually like guitar solos. 4. Kakusei Distortion This was a single, released September last year if I remember correctly. At that time I really loved this song and I still do. It's hard toreview because I've listened to it so many times now, but basically it'san awesome upbeat song with a great message. It makes me want to jumparound, and that's exactly the intention of the song. I'm also impressedat how Keiyuu is kind of yelling half of the time, but he still seemsto have good control over his voice. 5. Tokoyo no Kimi Okay, I freaked out (in a good way) when this song started. It starts with a jazzy piano solo, I almost thought it was going to be a reallyslow dramatic jazz song or something, but then the bass and drums kickin and it becomes, well, a Kra song. There's still some prominent pianoparts though. While it's upbeat, there is a dramatic-kind of feeling inthe way the chorus is sung ... Keiyuu's voice in the chorus isabsolutely beautiful in the chorus. ALSO THAT BASS SOLO OMG 6. Resistance Okay I just want to start out by saying this song reminds me so much of Muse. I never expected to think a Kra song sounds like Muse, but it'sjust... the mood is exactly the same. Keiyuu uses his 'rough voice' inthis song, and while I can't say he sounds sexy (I'm sorry Keiyuu isadorable no matter what he does), it really fits the song. Besides that,it's a real rock song, loads of heavy guitar riffs and yelling and soon. Oh, and matching the title, it really has a feeling of revolution/protest. 7. Regret After Resistance this song is a bit calmer, and Keiyuu's normal voice is back. The most memorable thing about this song is the guitar during theintro and outro, even thought it's a bit repetitive. The guitar alsomakes some interesting sounds during the chorus, but for some reasonits volume is very low and you can hardly hear it over Keiyuu's voice.This is a good song, but I don't have much more to say about it. 8. Honne This is the second single song on this album (by the way, this is the regular version I'm listening to, the limited edition doesn't haveKakusei Distortion or Honne). So once again, it's hard to review becauseit was released a while ago and I've heard it so many times now.Basically, I find the first part of this song a bit boring, but afterthe BASS SOLO and guitar solo and the bridge there's a piano a capellapart and it breaks my heart a little bit every time, and the chorusafter that is so empowering for some reason. 9. Joker Yeah! This song is very jazzy and danceable, exactly how I like my Kra songs. The bass in this song is sexy (even more than usual), and foronce the guitar is not all over the place but actually pretty plain(besides the solo of course). The vocals are really cool too, but the'Baaaka' part at the end of the first chorus always makes me laugh forsome reason. I adore this song, maybe it should have been the main songused for promotion instead of Alice. Out of the entire album, I thinkthis is the song I'm going to listen to the most. I can already imaginemyself thinking ' Oh, I want to listen to that Joker song now'. 10. Hoshi no Sakyuu A bit like Regret, this is a good song, but it's a pretty typical Kra song and thereisn't much to say about it. It's a bit sad and dramatic but still very upbeat.The verses are a bit plain (musically, that is, lyrically is another story)but the chorus is quite memorable. 11. SMLT Okay this song is all over the place, but the best way the describe it would be 'playful'. Both the verses and chorus are great, and thenthere's that weird chipmunk voice near the end... really creepy whenyou're blasting the song through your headphones. There's also the soundof bells chiming throughout the song, which is unusual but prettycool. I'm not going to start about the lyrics... 12. Utopia This is a great ending song, with harmonica parts and acoustic guitar and this kind of starry night, campfire feeling. I think this is theonly song that could be considered calm, but the drums are a bit tooloud for that probably. Anyway, it's a good song to end the album. --- This album is very typically Kra, but it brings enough variety andexciting songs. Kra has existed for 11 years now,and they're a PSC band, so I keep expecting them to become boring andmake generic pop-rock-visual kei-whatever, but they didn't! I'd give this album a 9/10.So has anyone else listened to it? 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Augie1995 325 Posted May 19, 2013 I'm not going to do a song by song review of this album but I finally got a good quality copy of the album and finally got to give it a good listen. I loved their single Honne and for some reason skipped their single Kakusei Distortion. I had no idea what I was getting myself into here. When they released their first album with Taizo in the line-up, I was really happy to hear some nostalgic Zoro-riffs and solos mixed in with Kra's jazzy, happy songs. Naru to Torute (I think that's its name) had me hooked for a while and then completely lost me. However, the opposite happened with Joker's Kingdom. I thought all the songs on here were excellent. Some very jazzy songs like Tokoyo no Kimi, Regret, there were some very rock, aggressive songs like Resistance, SMLT. There were also some lovely ballads such as Hoshi no Sakyuu and my favorite song off the album, Utopia. I was hoping for some more ZORO nostalgic things on here from Taizo but the only things I can find so far are on the single tracks Honne and Kakusei Distortion, but other than that, this album was a really good album and I absolutely love it. I didn't find a single song on here to be less than great. Can't wait to hear some new stuff from Kra soon. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites