I don’t think there any many people in the world who think, man, that Maniac guy sure is a great reviewer of music! Despite having a pretty eclectic range of tastes and weird recall from certain times and places when the really good stuff was being produced (in the West America), I often struggle to find a good point of reference for things that I’m hearing, and I don’t know as much about music theory as I’d like. The end result? “Song good superlative exposition comparison to mid-tier act from 20-30 years ago” is pretty much my formula.
I want to mix that up here, though, because Himegami CRISIS, for whom my love only grows deeper every time they put something out, has this live-edit MV out today, and I want to give my feelings about the song justice. Because I particularly don’t know enough about Japanese music (like, not-idol Japanese music), and also because I’d like for the adjectives involved here to accurately express my emotions, I’m asking you guys to listen to the thing and then help me find descriptors.
The song:
So help me think of some appropriate words and phrases to describe the thing.
I’m like:
- Neo-traditional, which of course
- That beat though
- Whoever wrote the hook was mainlining club-friendly radio hits from 1991
The only thing that I’m keeping to myself is the vocals. And not the actual vocals — we know that Rinka and Suzuka are good singers — but the way that they’re handled in the song structure. Layering and overlapping lines is always going to win me over, and in this case is really drives home the bizarre-but-enjoyable anachronistic focus of the entire composition.
This is one of those times when I think to myself, Himegami CRISIS could become kind of a big deal, seeing as how their style keeps open opportunities to pretty adroitly add or remove throttle to any song at any time to make it be what the audience needs it to be, but because they’re technically a song-and-dance unit instead of idols, and because people are the cause of all bad things, they remain criminally underexposed.
TGIF.
Quite artistic. Interestingly keeps the elegant atmosphere from the intro throughout the song, never really jumping at your face. Big emotion, no aggression. The midtempo beat doesn’t really make you dance but rather lifts your spirit high, like an electronic interpretation of taiko band at a summer festival in some small Japanese village. The sentimental chorus kind of breaks the traditional vibe but does it in a fairly stylish manner, without harming the song’s integrity at all. Exactly this kind of songs are regularly featured in emotionally touching anime shows.