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leapingtitan · 5 years

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R∃/MEMBER (Individual Song Thoughts) - SawanoHiroyuki[nZk] 3rd Album

I made a review on the 2nd album, 2V-ALK a while ago so here is the next installment. This is mostly for the Sawano Discord server but I’m posting it here for convenience and safekeeping purposes.

01. Glory -into the RM- (violin: SUGIZO from X Japan; vocal: Yosh)

I really love the instrumental parts of this track. It works well as an introduction piece and is up there with ~prologue~ for me. The vocal parts with Yosh are a bit weak and turn the track from a badass instrumental piece to a stadium football game chant. The track can do without it. However, there is that one section after the chorus where Yosh whispers like he’s singing in a 2000′s alternative rock band and the vocals do this cool panning effect. SUGIZO from X Japan is on the violin and his parts are really good and have a lot of synergy with the sampled bagpipes and piano. The guitar chugs are also pretty cool and remind me of TBFworld a bit. Overall, it’s a good track despite the vocal section being a bit unnecessary. Speaking of, them lyrics. “Honor of dying alone”? Was this made for Thunderbolt Fantasy or something?

02. EVERCHiLD (vocal: Akihito Okano from PornoGraffiti)

I admit the track has grown on me a bit and I definitely like it more than I did when the first preview video of it showed up. Still, as I’ve stated many times, I don’t really like happy and bright songs too much and prefer something with a stronger emotional impact. Still, the track is nice and again I’m glad Sawano did something different with the drums for once rather than layering electronic beats over an acoustic kit. My biggest problem with the track is the last chorus and the outro. “Tiny world is so stuffed all day, but nothing’s gonna change my story” is sung 6 times back to back and gets repetitive after the 2nd one. Should have just kept it as an instrumental. Other than that, I’m not the biggest fan of Akihito Okano’s voice. I like him more in the first Bnha OP for instance.

03. never gonna change (vocal: SukimaSwitch)

One of the tracks I’ve been most hyped for since the preview has dropped and boy does it not disappoint. I love the guitar and the drums and SukimaSwitch’s voice is really nice. It honestly reminds me some of the pop-ish music I used to listen when I was younger. The “2nd chorus” in the original PV was actually the bridge, to my surprise. The 2nd verse, which is new here, is really good. Love the guitar that comes in after the first few measures. Overall, the track is great.

Lastly, that instrumental outro section with the piano and guitar was completely unexpected but it’s amazing. It sounds like it would be a track rearrangement if never gonna change was an OST piece. Really good and honestly adds a whole new dimension at the end of an otherwise great track. My favorite so far.

04. narrative (vocal: LiSA)

Now we get to some of the tracks which have already been heard before in other releases. I’d be repeating myself if I go in detail like with the other tracks so the tl;dr version would be that I don’t think LiSA’s voice fits this type of Sawano music at all. Not that it’s a surprise considering the track wasn’t even composed with her vocals in mind. The instrumental is, for all it’s worth, actually not that bad. I don’t really mind the strings, or “casio pad strings” as dante calls them and it makes the song at least a bit more interesting.

05. i-mage (vocal: Aimer)

It’s been a long time since an Aimer and Sawano collab and unfortunately I don’t think the wait was that worth it. For the record, I really love Aimer’s voice but the song composition itself is what I dislike. Similarly to EVERCHiLD, the song just doesn’t have enough emotional impact, at least for me. I can see the appeal of it otherwise but personally it doesn’t do much on my end. The intro and verse are alright but the chorus is where it gets too playful for me to take it seriously and I found myself spacing out and losing focus on the actual track which hasn’t happened with the other songs so far. The 2nd verse has some cool bass going on but it sounds really noisy in the mix for some reason. Lastly, again, same problem with EVERCHiLD where the standout English portion of the lyrics, in this case “Light and dreams that children hold tight, now you have them in your right hand” repeats way too much in the last chorus and outro portions. Same formula.

Despite all of these complaints I think if I listen to the track enough it might grow on me. Might. But other than that, a bit underwhelming and personally my least favorite Sawano and Aimer collaboration for now.

06. NOISEofRAIN (vocal: swan with nishi Takanori Nishikawa from TM Revolution)

I’m gonna be honest here, it’s really hard for me to talk about this song without any irony and memes to go with it. This song just slaps. That’s it. I listen to it on an almost daily basis and have been doing so since it came out at the end of November. Can’t really say much other than it’s my favorite [nZk] song and Takanori Nishikawa is the OG.

One thing I have to point out though is that the mix in this album’s version is slightly different than the one in the narrative/NOISEofRAIN single, specifically the start of the first verse where there’s two synths that are either made really quiet or missing. Yeah, I’ve listened to this track way too much in order to notice the smallest things like that..

OUTRAGERS DRIVE ME NUTS

07. Binary Star (vocal: Uru)

This is the one older [nZk] song I can’t put my feelings into words for. I really like Uru’s voice and I hope Sawano collaborates with her again in the future, but the song itself is just... strange. Specifically the instrumental. It’s just really weird, having the strings and piano portion at first and then adding drums later on. I just don’t know what to think. I definitely don’t dislike it and I do enjoy it but that’s it. I actually really need to listen to it more often...

You know what, Binary Star is really nice.

08. ME & CREED <nZkv> (vocal: Sayuri)

Okay... so... uhm. I guess this is it. This is the track. I’ve made fun of this song a lot back when we only had PVs to go on. I called it a lot of things and overall shared the server’s opinion that it’s not that great. But you know what? I listened to it once today, in the full album. Just once, didn’t really need to listen anymore to open my eyes.

By the way, little fun fact: It’s actually spelled Me & Creed in the original Blue Exorcist OST, or I guess if you want the full name.. “Exorcist Concerto First Movement”... something like that, don’t !songtitle me... but yeah I’m just delaying the inevitable here.

So, I have finally been able to have a fresh, reformed opinion on ME & CREED <nZkv> and express my true feelings. Because, well, the truth is...

...

It still fucking sucks.

Honestly... just.. why? First of all, out of all of the “High Pitched Jpop Vocalists That Do Not Match Sawano’s Composition Style” category members, Sayuri is by far the worst. And, you know, that might just be be for not preferring this kind of voice that a lot of Japanese singers, but I’ve listened to some of Sayuri’s own stuff and it’s not bad because the SONG ACTUALLY FITS HER VOICE.

Now, despite all of this the verse is alright. The chorus is where the harmonies really get out of hand and only make the already bad vocals worse. And it wouldn’t have been as jarring if the instrumental was decent but it’s not. Me & Creed is not at all the type of song that would benefit from overly punchy kick drums and toms and it loses its entire flavor just with the drums alone. It sounds like a below-average pre-rec demo of the original track and doesn’t even respect what kind of song the original is.

Also, this is made for a mobile game. I don’t know about you but if this was in a game as its main theme that would not give me a good impression.

Fun fact, this is the only track on the entire album that is under 4 minutes long. I guess you can say it came short in multiple departments. I give it an Aldnoah Zero out of 10.

09. Unti-L (vocal: ASCA)

After the traumatizing experience that is the previous track, I come to something that is actually good. Unti-L and never gonna change are my favorite new tracks from this album. I’ve been looking forward to this one since the first 5 second PV and I’ve been listening to the short version a lot for the past week. The song is incredible. 6/8 time signature, ballad-y sound, strings and good sound design in general makes for a solid and near flawless track. ASCA’s voice is very enjoyable and I find that it works well with the song since it was probably made with her vocals in mind unlike narrative and... the other thing.

I can’t really say much else, really. Great intro, verse, vocals, melody and overall sound. The instrumental break/bridge is also very pleasant with the simple guitar. Probably the most emotionally impacting track on the album and I love it.

10. Cage (vocal: Tielle)

The original Cage is interesting but I have to say I find it inferior to the <NTv> version from the narrative/NOISEofRAIN single. I’m not the biggest fan of the synth in the intro and the electronic drums don’t quite do it for me in terms of the overall sound. The <NTv> version is still superior in every way and has fits more with the melody and Tielle’s voice. Overall though, the composition is great but you can’t really look at the instrumental alone in both cases since Tielle’s voice makes the track what it is.

11. REMEMBER (vocal: mizuki, Gemie, Tielle, naNami, Yosh)

Should have just credited it as [nZchoir].

On a serious note, this sounds like something you would hear in a Disney Channel movie, especially the chorus. The track is surprisingly pleasant to listen to and I find it really catchy and easy to jam and sing along to. Also like the parts where there’s just one vocalist singing and the choir effect in the chorus is really nice as well. Again.. Disney movie.

I actually want to say more about this track but I definitely need to listen to it a bit more to make other comments. Other than that, it’s nice.

Conclusion

As a whole, this seems like a much more fresh album than 2V-ALK. It still doesn’t compare to the diversity and variety in o1 or how solid UnChild is, but I still think it’s at least on par with 2V-ALK despite not having all that many songs. Still, the new original tracks here (well, almost all of them) are interesting and despite my comments on some of them I do think they do their thing and make the album.. work, I guess. I definitely have some tracks I want to go back and relisten to a few of them though, which is a good sign.

I don’t have individual ratings for the tracks but in terms of ranking, a few hours after my first impressions and a few listens I would order them in the following fashion. The best is at the top and the worst is at the bottom.

NOISEofRAIN

never gonna change

Unti-L

Glory -into the RM-

Binary Star

REMEMBER

EVERCHiLD

i-mage

Cage

narrative

you know what goes here.

And that would be it. Thanks for reading!

#hiroyuki sawano #music

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