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Tracklist | |
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01 - Waltz 02 - Black Sunshine 03 - Danny Boy 04 - Forget The Swan 05 - Chloe 06 - あと10秒で 07 - 欲望 08 - 刺青 09 - Love Letter Box 10 - Perfect Kiss 11 - Paradise Lost 12 - 僕が君だったら 13 - 影 14 - 天使が見た夢 |
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Review | |
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Art-School walk the line between indie heart-throbs and making an actual artistic statement more precariously than most. The magnetism of front man Kinoshita Riki is undeniable. Hate him or love him, the man has had a bear's presence in Japanese Indie ever since the band played their first Fuji Rock fest in 2002. It is the polarizing effect of the man's personality, voice, Kubozuka-Yosuke-in-Ping-Pong haircut, and writing that carries on to the band he controls and makes it a real one-man show. My own experience with the band has been pretty interesting (if standard). Like many, I immediately fell hard for the strong pop rock songwriting and gentle simplicity of 2003's Love/Hate; it was enough for me to purchase the album and play it quite thoroughly for about two weeks straight. But soon after those two weeks the sameness of it all began to crash down. The maudlin self-pity so evident in Kinoshita's voice (it's obvious even without any understanding of the mostly-Japanese lyrics) and the lack of depth brought an end to the party. Both the founding bassist and guitarist left the group after Love/Hate and I didn't have the stamina to check out anything released after that point, though with Kinoshita's singular vision it didn't make much difference (it's obvious now how much of bassist Hidekazu's talents were wasted considering his time with Zazen Boys). So last summer, reports came out detailing a new album featuring production by a famed Brit and incredibly bizarre collaborations with a member of Mogwai, among other strange and potentially overqualified guest musicians. It still wasn't enough to excite me and I had to be forced to listen to Paradise Lost by this very review, months later. As soon as "Waltz," the opening track for the album, started up I knew something was different. Working with foreigners presented a fully new Art-School, even if it was just for the first three minutes. The impact is obvious. Riki still sounds exactly the same and the same inflections and singing style is completely unchanged, but Paradise Lost does seem fairly different overall, even if just on the face of things. The opening five songs are extremely compelling, especially on the first listen. Up until "Ato 10 Byou De" I was fairly convinced that Art-School had somehow fabricated some actual substance to accompany their ever-present style. As Paradise Lost drags on though, it begins to, well, drag on. "Ato 10 Byou De," the single from the album, is fairly obviously the start of this realization. The preceeding songs aren't really all that different from "Ato." In fact, "Ato" probably sounds fresher than "Black Sunshine" or "Danny Boy" thanks to the new use of a pulsing electronic rhythm section. But it's the clichéd use of emo's loud-soft dynamics that remind us we've heard Riki try to pull this exact same song on us dozens of times before. Going through the same song over and over again is a real chore to plough through and that's never a good sign. Art-School's soil is just too shallow and too lacking in nitrogen to bear any sort of garden at all. All the new instruments and techniques and guest musicians are a really nice gesture on Art-School's part, but it's just not enough. Many will probably be fooled into thinking this is a new direction and a fresh start for the band but this is definitely not the case. If anything, adding funk ("Chloe," "Perfect Kiss"), extra distortion and speed ("Forget The Swan"), or background orchestration ("Paradise Lost"), only magnifies the problems with Riki's basic songwriting. It's really refreshing to see a band actually try and spruce things up like this, but Paradise Lost is just more of the same but with extra window dressing. I can't help thinking that if Riki actually had depth in his writing or even if he wasn't in such stern command of the entire band then Art-School might be an interesting group finally. As it is, Paradise Lost is an overly long snooze-fest with a few really interesting parts injected here and there. Adding guests and a few new chords to their emo repertoire might be enough to fool the Riki fangirls but discerning listeners should be pretty angry, if only they weren't already fast asleep. |
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