So, firstly, the cover. Do they look sexy or slutty? I haven't actually decided yet. Aika looks like a cockatiel. Gaki looks frumpy and in her late 30s. Reina's standing on a box. The others don't look too bad, but yea. Odd. The other cover's not much better.
Anyway, let's get down to the review of what's important, the music.
Preliminary: wtf. Not what I was expecting. Not what I wanted. Not anything. A case of... huh?
1. Moonlight Night ～月夜の晩だよ～. Well... the first three words of the album sum it up. "Electro Convulsive Therapy" indeed. The synth in this is... amusing. Not annoying though, which is just as well. The random operatic bit is brilliant. However it's not repeated and this just gets samey very quickly. It's not great, but not bad. Needs something extra, but I'm buggered if I can figure out what it is. Vocally everyone seems to be decent. Then Autotune gets used and marks quickly fall away. I can't forgive its usage. Ever. 5/10
2. 気まぐれプリンセス. This is an amusing as hell single. The lyrics are screwed up to all hell, apparently the inspiration came from Tsunku looking at his daughter's ass. Not sure why he wanted to do that when he has 2 harems of nubile young women to satisfy him, but oh well. Maybe he's into incest. Anyway, the song. It's not bad. It's odd. The guitar parts are interesting, the strings are interesting. The bassline is a nuisance, I wish they'd use real basses again, instead of this bloody sawtooth. The chipmunking doesn't affect me. It's not a brilliant single, but it's by no means the worst ever. 6/10
3. 元気ピカッピカッ! I'm not a fan of this. The "weak" synth kills it. I can't stand the high pitched "breathy" stuff on synths. It just lacks any power and gets on my nerves. Only time it's been pulled off well is on Buono's My Boy, and that had the added win of being metal as fuck. This doesn't have that, so it's tame. I want to go to their studio and delete all these pussy-synths from the memory of their DAWs. Other than the synth, it would be a perfectly good song, but... dammit. It's irritating and gets in the way. Vocally, it's good. Even musically, it's good. The violin break is much, much win. If that synth hadn't been there, 8 or 9, easily. As it is... 5/10
4. 涙ッチ. Fuck yea. This is what I want. Musically, perfect. Vocally, very good. Rock elements lift it nicely. The rap is genius, fuck Nanchatte Renai's, this is where it's at. Piano usage is as it should be, to support and be win. Overall, probably one of the best on here. 9/10
5. 女が目立って なぜイケナイ. Oh fuck make it stop! Another pussy-synth. The acoustic guitars, great. But get rid of the fucking synths! I heard a metal arrangement of this and it was great. This song has potential, but, it's not exploited, at all. The vocals are okay. The violin is cool, but under-utilised. Overall, this is the weakest Momusu single since Aruiteru. Even beats Resonant Blue, which I hate. 2/10
6. 大きい瞳. Ah, much nicer on the ears. Synths that work towards something. Digitised guitar works. Some cool riffs. Vocally, Reina is driving this song along. Then autotune gets used again. Based on Shuffle Date, Sayu doesn't need it. Plus it takes away all her personality. Automatic mark loss. Anyone who puts autotune into a song deserves to be shot. Repeatedly. In the balls. The refrain is nice. Non-annoying breathy synth. So they do know how to do it, just choose to make people's ears bleed. Bastards. 5/10
7. あの日に戻りたい. With Ai and Gaki, the two strongest vocalists in Momusu (not so much a statement of opinion, but fact. Reina may be a 'better' vocalist, but Gaki's voice is deeper, more mature, and thus stronger :P ), I'd expect this to be very good. Starts nicely, like a mid-90's pop song. Pretty much continues in this vein, and, annoyingly, doesn't utilise either Aichan or Gaki to their full potential. Gets a bit boring after a while. Refrain is a nice change of timbre, but other than that throws up nothing special. 6/10
8. なんちゃって恋愛. Momusu's best single since Mikan... which ain't saying much. Had strong sales, but how much of that was promotion, how much was because it was the big 40, and how much because of it being a good song? If we can discount the first 35,000 copies as wota, it's still a decent improvement. Songwise, it's not brilliant, but good enough. Vocally, everyone's good except Sayu and Koharu. It's almost like after singing Kirarin for so long, Koharu forgot how to sing properly. It's my biggest nag. The rap part is pretty decent. Has better line distro than a lot of recent singles, so that's an improvement. 8/10
9. 大阪 美味いねん. I won't digress. I love the 8th gen. But what the fuck is this piece of shit? Tsunku needs to be disemboweled for this. Basically a blues song, with synths. Even the guitar parts can't save it. Osaka-ben lyrics which aren't a patch on Osaka Koi no Uta. The vocals are annoying and patchy. It's a waste of Lin's vocal talents, and I even feel sorry for Aika having to butcher her native accent so... robotically. Junjun sounds bored. Not a single hook to be heard. Lin's constant "yea yea's" are painful. This isn't even a song, just a pasted together pile of crap. 0/10
10. Loving you forever. Now this is how pop should sound. A good, mid-tempo song, minimalistic vocals, good tune. It works, like hardly anything else on this album manages. Sayu's voice is as annoying as always, but at least they didn't autotune the bloody thing this time. Would completely ruin any value this song had. Which is a lot. Overall, one of the better Momusu songs in recent years, and this could have been a perfect single. But no, Tsunku wants to focus on his synth heavy crap. Oh well, not much I can do about it. But this is a proper song. Need more of this kind of thing plz, Tunky. 10/10
11. しょうがない 夢追い人. Another of the wasted potential songs. However, this is better in its current configuration than the other piece of shit, and at least doesn't have annoying synths. The lead guitar saves the hell out of it, and the violin in the refrain does good things. Other than that... lacklustre. Could have been so much more, with a more powerful arrangement. Some more guitars, orchestral hits... would have been epic as fuck. But no, soft pop was the dish of the day, so... 7/10
12. 雨の降らない星では愛せないだろう? (中国語Ver.). Of course, I have to mark this down for laziness. As a song, it's the greatest thing Momusu have done in years, but I still prefer the Peipei leak over the P9D version, this and the ICM version. As a song, it ranks 10/10, but with the same arrangement, with just the addition of an acoustic guitar, I have to take shitloads of marks off for some of the most epic laziness ever. Even uses the same Chinese lyrics as the ICM version. Jun and Lin win vocally, but yea, language change isn't enough to get high marks. 6/10 for laziness.
Overall: Well, this album is weak as an album. Average of the song scores would give this 6.9/10, but considering the broad range of songs from 0 to 10, I have to give it overall less, because it has about as much "flow" as a Now That's What I Call Music album. So, I'll give it my lowest H!P official score yet (though not overall, considering I've only reviewed a few albums :P )...
5.5/10
Comparison Rankings:
Morning Musume. - 4th Ikimasshoi - 10
Buono! - We Are Buono! - 9.7
C-ute - 4 Akogare My Star - 8.5
Buono! - Buono! 2 - 7.5
Morning Musume. - Platinum 9 Disc - 6.5
