Featured Review #14: 虚言NEUROSE by MY FIRST STORY

[doombox 4421]

Artist: MY FIRST STORY Album: 虚言NEUROSE Score: Blazing your own trail isn't all it's cracked up to be.

It seems MY FIRST STORY have had a solid increase in popularity over the short amount of time they've been a band. In 2011 members of the piano-pop outfit fromus joined forces Hiroki Moriuchi and formed an alternative-rock powerhouse. 虚言NEUROSE (Kyogen NEUROSE) is their third full length album and shows a solid change in the band's direction taking shape.

It's a nice that the first track "monologue" pays homage to the piano-centric compositions from the band's early days. Soon electronic elements creep in and the intro builds on itself until it blends seamlessly into the title track, "虚言NEUROSE". This song is a high energy crowd-pleaser with open power chords and more atmospheric synth. It breaks down into small haunting piano interludes that are the dynamic strength of the track. Sadly, the song ends up being forgettable and blends into about 10 other similar tunes in my memory if I try to recall anything specific about it afterwards. Further down the tracklist, "ROOM" has more personality in spades and the guitar riff has a quirky bounce to it that leaves it stuck in your brain. The song has a focused electricity to it that would make it perfect for anyone looking for driving music. And each part of it feels necessary to make the energy climb sky high. Even Hiroki's scream, while it's the same wild animalistic cry we got in "虚言NEUROSE" was called for and it didn't cut in like some abrupt interruption. "ROOM" felt more like MY FIRST STORY's version of what is popular right now, and not cloning someone else's version of it.

 

The album holds a few solid tunes with hints of old school flair that die-hard fans should enjoy, "If I Am.." defines the 'classic' MY FIRST STORY sound while letting the drums take center stage, even riding the fine line of overpowering the vocals at points. The band should explore more of this sound. The simple, stripped down style suits them and shows off the side of them that people fell in love with on their self titled album. "Someday" picks up where "If I Am..." left off and returns to the band's signature style. Drums continue to be the driving force only this time they are armed with electronics and a more intricate vocal melody. The passionate feeling in the vocals steals the show and reveals that Hiroki does have an impressive vocal range. The band took some risks and it's always nice to hear an expansion of their sound. "CHiLD -error-" opens with a monster drum line and plays with some punk influences in skank beats and three chord progressions on guitar. Their experimentation pays off because they didn't over-complicate it. I braced myself for a train wreck but "CHiLD -error-" stays the coarse and ends up being one of my favorites on the album.

 

On the other hand some songs fell flat and came far too close to ONE OK ROCK territory. I would consider this the most glaring flaw on 虚言NEUROSE. It's hard enough not to have comparison based on the Moriuchi brothers' similar voices, but in a perfect world that is where the comparisons would end. MY FIRST STORY is encroaching on a style ONE OK ROCK is already famous for. It's a bad move any way you slice it. The most disappointing of all were promotional tracks like "Black Rail" and "Fake" that were sent out to define this album and end up sounding like tired, cliché filler. This was exacerbated by bad tracklist placement. "Drive Me" and "Monochrome effector" came up short. While both had cool intros that stood out, the songs themselves didn't deliver and rested on the band's laurels with dull compositions. "Zero Gravity" is the summit of this album and harbors full-tilt screamed verses with fervent guitar-heavy aggression supporting it. The song has an unusual layering effect where the sung choruses have lower volume screams behind them that do not blend very well. It leaves me confused as to what direction they wanted to go or if it was simply a bad experiment. The song has another identity crisis soon after that and takes on an EDM(-ish) section that then tries to marry all three elements together and fails, leaving this album's climax rather anti-climactic.

 

The band themselves are adept musicians. The changes in their writing style shows they have the ability to grow and evolve as necessary. They can play a multitude of styles well. Now, this bias may be defined by my musical taste from an American perspective, but a band having it's own musical identity is a big part of what makes them worth listening to. 虚言NEUROSE has a few songs that I would recommend, but mostly it's a letdown. There's far too much filler and the songs that give them their own identity play second fiddle to other songs that resemble what other bands, much too close to home, already do better. MY FIRST STORY are a relatively young band, and they have a lot of time left to find themselves. I hope this album ends up as an experimental addition to their catalog and not a transitional one. Continuing down this path will only place them in an already overcrowded cannibalistic market that lets the trends define them instead of creating those trends.

 

[Shaolan974 6185]

I like the title track only. The rest...is not bad but...MY FIRST STORY should aspire to push the envelope and try new things, Yeah.

[Kaye 296]

While I do like the release, I think that out of their three albums it's the weakest one. I love Black Rail, and the title track isn't bad either, but apart from that there's not really anything that sticks while I did have this with the previous releases.

 

What I do love is that it's obvious Hiroki keeps getting better and better, and I hope they'll continue to reinvent themselves with ever single release so that they'll fall into their best niche one day. Them sounding like OOR doesn't bother me too much, but I hope they at least stick to a more alternative version of them and don't become and exact copy. No matter how much I love both brothers and their bands, Hiroki isn't anywhere near Taka just yet.