featured review #98: 四季彩-shikisai- by 和楽器バンド

[Zeus 7997]

 

 

Tracklist:

1. Okinotayuu (オキノタユウ)
2. Yukiyo Mai Chire Sochira ni Mukete (雪よ舞い散れ其方に向けて)
3. Valkyrie -Senotome- (Valkyrie-戦乙女-)
4. Kishikaisei (起死回生)
5. Mi・Ra・I (ミ・ラ・イ)
6. Strong Fate
7. Ukiyo heavy life (浮世heavy life)
8. Ryuusei (流星)
9. Hotarubi (蛍火)
10. Sora no Kiwami e (空の極みへ)
11. Tori no You ni (鳥のように)
12. Mochizuki (望月)
13. Watashi Shijou Shugi (ワタシ・至上主義)
14. CLEAN
15. Howling
16. MOON SHINE
17. Children Record (チルドレンレコード) (Bonus Track)

 

| Fad fatigue or the overstaying of a shallow, constricting musical direction? You decide.

 

The sophomore slump is a term I've adopted to describe the enormous amount of pressure placed on a musician or band for their second album. The first album is poised as the mountain beyond which lies the valley of greatness, but once an artist reaches the peak what they see is the second album, a mountain in the distance that's just as large. 和楽器バンド (Wagakki-Band) is merely the latest prey to this phenomenon. 四季彩-shikisai- as an album aims to deliver everything 八奏絵巻 (Yasouemaki) did and more, but at some point diminishing returns means the result doesn't scale well.

 

For starters, I don't think going all in helps a band with such a dense sound. Less is more. Listening fatigue is an issue. 四季彩-shikisai- clocks in a hefty 16 tracks and 68 minutes. That is too long for my limited attention span, and at points the album retraces its steps in a way that reeks more of desperation and less at a motif. On top of that, it lacks flow, sounding more like a collection of good tracks than a cohesive concept. "Strong Fate" and "Valkyrie-戦乙女-" are awesome singles, but there is no analogue to "暁ノ糸", and there is no epic track to define the album.

 

The music is still their niche of traditional ethnic themes fused with rock with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the groin. The band holds no punches with opener "起死回生", a four minute summary of their sound that's quickly forgotten as the album hustles forward. This is my primary beef with 四季彩-shikisai-. 和楽器バンド have the capability to completely change their sound from one track to another, but they are unable to differentiate similar sounding tracks. When all tracks go full force with the traditional concept, it feels like one long track with various ideas sprinkled throughout. By the end, I barely remember what I heard. I have to give a shout out to the engineers who produced this album, because it's as good as ever, and is a bright spot on what is otherwise a faceless album to me. For the record, I don't think 四季彩-shikisai- is terrible, but it's definitely too much of one thing at once. If you need a summary, consider this: I've been working on wording my thoughts since this album was released, and not only do I not have any more to add, but I'm not even compelled to return to it! Something is missing from the equation, but it is beyond my capabilities to say what.

 

Despite my initial misgivings, I eventually did warm up to the album. And by that I mean I've changed my opinion from "complete dog shit" to "something listenable". I appreciate them not fleecing wallets the visual kei way, but this could have easily been an eleven track album and a five track mini and both would have been better, more focused cuts for it. Risky propositions like "ワタシ・至上主義", or the infectious digital tune "蛍火" are the tracks I see myself returning to in the future, and maybe with time I'll fall in love with it. But right now, it's just not the type of album I was hoping to experience.

 

 

Support the band!

 

iTunes | cdJapan

[The Reverend 3566]

Had a long drive over the weekend and noticed this album was on Spotify so finally gave it a listen (the tracklist is completely different on Spotify for some reason).

 

 

On 5/22/2017 at 9:12 PM, Zeus said:

Less is more. Listening fatigue is an issue.

 

Basically my biggest complaint. Their sound is novel and cool in small doses... but over an entire album almost becomes a gimmick. The vocalist's unrelenting vibrato on some tracks can wear on you. Agreed the production is great though.

 

On 5/22/2017 at 9:12 PM, Zeus said:

 

I appreciate them not fleecing wallets the visual kei way, but this could have easily been an eleven track album and a five track mini and both would have been better, more focused cuts for it.

 

This band would be a great candidate to just eschew the concept of a full album in general. If they released a single a season with a cool video (as they definitely have the capability of making) they'd probably be one of my favorite bands.

I wouldn't even consider just releasing single songs (or maybe singles with a b-side) as 'fleecing' since they put their shit online. A $5 single four times a year probably makes the people who buy physical copies happier in a 'have a bigger collection of *things* for the same price' way and the people who aren't buying their albums anyway don't get tired of the slog through an album and forget about them the rest of the year.

 

These record labels really need to hire me and let me enact my vision for a perfect world

[Himeaimichu 1535]

19 hours ago, The Reverend said:

Basically my biggest complaint. Their sound is novel and cool in small doses... but over an entire album almost becomes a gimmick. The vocalist's unrelenting vibrato on some tracks can wear on you. Agreed the production is great though.

 

Yeah, really long albums can get quite boring, as I noticed most are filled with filler songs. Medium sized (in between standard and long) albums are best for bands in general. But knowing Wagakki Band's sound, it's best if they stay with standard length albums, because they're not being Kiryu and having a quite inconsistent sound (Shorter albums are the problem on Kiryu's end). Wagakki Band stays quite consistent, mostly containing lighter stuff, sometimes powerful, sometimes soft, never really "heavy". They're quite defined. and that's totally fine. But long albums + a defined sound is going to feel repetitive and gimmicky. 

And yeah, Yuko's voice can get quite old hearing it so much, especially with all the post-production they put on the vocals, it takes out a lot of the raw frequencies, and well, ends up making every instance sound the same. (Heavy Vibrato plus lots of reverb is a problem on its own). Also, it's the same treatment that they give Pop Vocalists (minus the autotune, I think) and that can make it feel even more gimmicky. 

But that's just my speculation and 2 cents. 

[Zeus 7997]

On 6/5/2017 at 8:07 AM, The Reverend said:

This band would be a great candidate to just eschew the concept of a full album in general. If they released a single a season with a cool video (as they definitely have the capability of making) they'd probably be one of my favorite bands.

I wouldn't even consider just releasing single songs (or maybe singles with a b-side) as 'fleecing' since they put their shit online. A $5 single four times a year probably makes the people who buy physical copies happier in a 'have a bigger collection of *things* for the same price' way and the people who aren't buying their albums anyway don't get tired of the slog through an album and forget about them the rest of the year.

 

Would that if they could. There's an unspoken stigma in music circles where if a band isn't releasing albums constantly they may as well not be recording music, even if they are constantly gigging and promoting new individual songs. When I think about the kinds of bands that don't record albums, they are either the ones that record very long songs (industry definition of an album is by number of songs and not song length...unless they think they can get away with labeling one very long song an album) that pass as EPs or bands that simply can't afford pressing albums. I think they could do it. I would be interested to see Wagakki-Band stick with mini albums and singles and pushing each song harder as a result, but I think we'd have better luck convincing the producers to take a more natural approach to mastering the sound.