Kanashimi
Artist: Suneohair
Album: Kanashimi
Musicians: Watanabe Kenji
Composer/Lyricist: Watanabe Kenji
Release Date: 9 Mar 2005
| Kanashimi - Suneohair Tracklisting 01. No trick *Bold titles - recommended listening. |
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OVERVIEW
Suneohair is undoubtedly underexposed in the rapid and frenzied world of Japanese music. Despite performing the ending to the well-received anime Honey and Clover (and its sequel series), not many know about his music, and information is hopelessly difficult to find even on the colossal information superhighway that is the internet. Despite his relative anonymity, his music is very refined and consistently high-quality. While most of his music remains conventional and sticks to light pop with rock overtones, each track has a very high level of quality and care, and ultimately sounds very pleasing and laid back, if not exceptionally daring. This eventually becomes the core of his music, and one that is associated with both Suneohair as well as Kanashimi – the album disappointingly fails to bring anything new or experimental to the table, but conversely there’s little that stands out as outlandishly poor.
THE GOOD
Waltz
Undoubtedly poppy and extremely easy on the ears, the song “Waltz” stands out as the most catchy and agreeable song on the album. Laden with plenty of synthesizer beats and a very cheerful, upbeat tempo, it also manages to impart a tone of melancholy; the nostalgic, reflective lyrics accentuate the attitude of the song, giving the song depth beyond its catchy beat. The conflicting emotions invoked by the song are somewhat jarring at first, but they never seem false or contrived – the pathos of the song brings out its best qualities. Despite being somewhat bitter-sweet, the song manages to be easy on the ears, and is in general representative of the mood of the album as a whole.
Future
The repeating guitar riff that persists throughout the album evokes the two general concepts of “Future”: the song is very catchy, but also manages to display an exceptional amount of technical prowess. The song maintains the same nostalgic yet upbeat tone that was set by “Waltz”, and without losing the style of the song, Suneohair manages to pull off an impressive mix of distorted guitar and clean synthesized beats. To a greater extent, and perhaps more importantly, the vocals of this song are top-notch. A great number of falsettos are used, with the vocals hitting very high points, without any sign of over extenuation. Like many of the songs on the album, it’s very relaxing and fits into the style of the album holistically.
THE BAD
Landmark
This track can probably be summed up as the black sheep of the album. The song is somewhat laid back, but the tempo lies in an ambiguous area between fast and slow, which feels somewhat awkward. The tempo of Landmark, coupled with the vocals being somewhat pitchy and whiny at times keeps the song from being extremely memorable. Holistically, the song is commendable, and still maintains the excellent quality evident in all of the songs in the album. Despite its individual qualities, it throws a knuckleball into the flow of the album and feels incongruous with the tone of the other songs. Most frustrating is the song’s placement right in the middle of the album, which makes it particularly awkward, and definitely brings the album down somewhat.
The Rating: 7
Reviewed by: royal crown
