Featured Review #52: Charisma.com - OLest

[Zeus 7997]

Artist: Charisma.com Album: OLest 1. やれよ。 (Yare yo.) 2. お局ロック (Otsubone Rock) 3. マメマメBOYがさつGIRL (Mamemame Boy Gasatsu Girl) 4. アラサードリーミン (Arasaa Doriimin) 5. ダリぃだらりん (Darii Dararin) 6. こんがらガール (Kongara Girl) 7. 超絶に胸が痛んでいるあなたの上司 (Chouzetsu ni Mune ga...) 8. 黄昏各位 (Tasogare Kakui)

Rating: | The black sheep of Charisma.com's discography makes an appearance.

 

Avoiding the sophomore slump is what separates the one-hit wonders from the naturally gifted. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, 'sophomore slump' is what happens when an artist's second album fails to live up to their first album. The pressure to evolve while improving and retaining the elements fans liked about the music is always difficult. It happens to all artists, some more than others, but it seems most likely to happen to artists that "blew up overnight". Now enter one quirky female electropop duo who have made considerably big waves in the last four years. Flows as smooth as butter over fat beats and clever samples is what put Charisma.com on the map. They defined their sound on アイ　'アイ　シンドローム (Ai Ai Syndrome) and pushed it farther on DIStopping, which was so unbelievably good it won the MH 2014 AOTY award in a landslide upset. By definition, Charisma.com was fated to have a duel with the Slump. But instead of tackling it head on, these girls brush it aside like it's not a problem. OLest is more than a shallow clone of DIStopping. By adjusting their creative compass a few degrees, they've subverted expectations, slayed their nefarious opponent, and produced their catchiest music to date in one fell swoop.

No one was ready for this. This time the girls have pushed the limits back further than ever before. It makes for a more well-rounded album in the long run but is not as easy to listen to the first few times. Unless you're an enthusiast of hip hop production, modern house music, disco, and trance, the transitions on this album will feel weird and unsettling. Almost every track features a collaboration with a notable EDM or pop producer which gives each song personality (and is also why this album feels so schizophrenic at points). The beats are absolute fire at their best but when they aren't, some tracks fall flat more than others. "マメマメBOYがさつGIRL" (Mamemame Boy Gasatsu Girl) is the flattest of them all, sounding like a bad interpretation of trap music. It's not all that great. Limited editions also feature two remixes: one of "イイナヅケブルー" (Iinazuke Blue) and the other of "HATE". I haven't tracked down "HATE", but the gabber remix of the former destroys all the good qualities about the original and made me uninterested in finding the latter. Only a hair above those Gauze-era Dir en grey remixes no one talks about, it's inferior to the original and ends the album on a sufficiently weird and unsatisfactory note.

Even with its flaws, OLest bangs hard. "やれよ。" (Yare yo.) and "ダリぃだらりん" (Darii Dararin) should come with a doctor's warning about how infectious it is. The first single "こんがらガール" (Kongara Girl) is full on turbo pop, perfect background music for a commercial about hair brushes. Even the more accessible moments like "アラサードリーミン" (Arasaa Doriimin) sound like Infected Mushroom demos with bars and poppy choruses. So while you're trying to convince yourself "超絶に胸が痛んでいるあなたの上司" (Chouzetsu ni Mune ga Itandeiru Anata no Joushi) doesn't sound vaguely like disco, you're still wrapping your head around what "お局ロック" (Otsubone Rock) was.

Charisma's biggest problem is that OLest will always be compared to DIStopping because the latter set the bar so high that matching it again is a huge feat. Even though they are more similar than different, they're different enough to be treated as two completely different albums. DIStopping was a fun ride through the playground of pop meets hip hop meets Japan and immediately caught my attention on first listen, but I find myself listening to it less and less as time passes. On the other hand, OLest sufficiently freaked me out the first time I heard it. I wasn't quite sure what the hell I heard. But over time, I've come to appreciate how much more mature and refined it is, managing to be both shorter and more diverse at the same time.

Also, I put this on at a party and people started dancing without asking me why it wasn't in English. Find me another Japanese album that can do that and I'll find some socks to eat.

Support the band!

Purchase OLest from CDJapan if you liked the music and support the artists!

[ghost 2687]

Awesome review! I forgot about this release but now I'm really curious to hear it. Loved their first EP and album.

Your last comment especially got me interested to listen to the album.

[Zeus 7997]

Awesome review! I forgot about this release but now I'm really curious to hear it. Loved their first EP and album.

Your last comment especially got me interested to listen to the album.

The overall consensus on the album hasn't quite settled yet. Some people love it, some people hate it, most people can't form any opinion about it. It took me two weeks to put together this review. If you feel any type of way about this album after you listen to it feel free to share. I would love to get more opinions on it.

[CAT5 9075]

Great review, but I couldn't get into this album at all. Itsuka is still great, but I felt like the production here really held them back, as it wasn't as quirky as some of the previous stuff.

Despite the production, it seems like their actual sound is still intact, though.

[ghost 2687]

Just finished my first listen and it wasn't bad. *I've been listening to it the whole time writing this, so 3 times is more accurate lol*

I definitely agree when you say that this is the catchiest music they've made so far. DIStopping was great, but Olest definitely has more infectious chorus' (chorus's??). I was pleasantly surprised with tracks like "around thirty dreaming" and how they were able to retain their sound while injecting that refined pop sound. I was sort of expecting the duo to lose practically all their unique sound after going major, but I'm glad they proved me wrong. Like CAT5 said, it's definitely less quirky and unique, but their core sound is still there.

The length was perfect. Becaue DIStopping had so many songs, I found it hard to listen to in one sitting. I can easily see me listening through all of OLest while just studying or driving somewhere without feeling like it's dragging on. As a side note, I found the second half of the album to be much more enjoyable.

I like OLest because I feel it shows growth from DIStopping. Like you said, it's shorter but manages to be tighter and create more diversity. I can see why people wouldn't enjoy this release as much, but I personally found it just as great. Well, maybe not AS great but like you said, that's pretty hard to top.

[doombox 4421]

I never really listened to DIStopping other than the videos people played in plug, and maybe a preview from the AOTY list came out. But I enjoyed them enough to make me check out this album. While I can't say anything on the album was bad, only a couple of songs really left an impression on me outside of being fun to dance to. "Yareyo." was basically it and I kinda just got slowly less hype from every track that followed. Hearing that this album was full of big name producers also makes me a little surprised too. Sure, the album had a lot of variety, but I don't know if it did a good job with every avenue it attempted. I was also expecting a little more emphasis on how the lyrics were delivered, but it felt like the focus was mostly on it being catchy. The delivery got a little boring and that may also be why I started losing my hype as the album progressed. 

 

I agree with @CAT5 in that this album may have been a little over-produced and they lost a bit of their uniqueness in it.

[fitear1590 2414]

*finds a Japanese song that basic Americans will dance to, just so Zeus has to eat socks*