Review Summary: From Now On...same as always
As a, well, "western" girl, as far as current Japanese all-female rock bands go, I find BAND-MAID to be quite the best of the bunch – a testament to the oft-too-repeated 和criticism of appealing equally or closer to Western sensibilities in rock rather than Japanese ones.
Unleash is BAND-MAID's overall 13th release, a brand new EP coming in a year and a half after their last album,
Unseen World. Despite this break in releases, the baggage is still felt in the music – see, after their breakout album
World Domination introduced the band to a new audience, BAND-MAID followed it up with the bit-controversial, wrongfully-maligned
Conqueror, a release built mainly around disjointing the songs into emphasis-on-the-vocal-parts and emphasis-on-the-instrumental-parts instead of a whole package. Course-correcting (for some fans, anyway) apology album
Unseen World was next, which stated plainly that yes, BAND-MAID is still a hard rocking band.
Unleash mostly continues this, with instrumental opener
From Now On seeing the band sticking to a textbook definition of hard rock – a track made entirely of guitar wankery in the best of ways. Lead single
Unleash!!!, with it's slightly-more-downtuned-than-usual guitars (and cute anime music video to boot) will surely provide for the slightest raise of brows for long-time listeners and hard rock fans alike, but the business-as-usual structure of the track quickly draws listeners into BAND-MAID's comfort zone.
Sense,
Corallium and
Hate? find the band showing off their skills in rock songwriting, perfectly showcasing aggression (the end of
Hate?), or melodic sensibilities (
Sense's fantastic bridge), or both (the whole of
Corallium). Album standout (and soon to be fan favourite)
I'll is BAND-MAID's at it's finest – a masterclass of building up verses into the release of a soaring chours, complimented by an Unseen-World-esque perfect blend of melodic vocals (both lead and backing) and roaring guitars resulting in a complete package that can only be described as an absolute
banger of a song.
On the more negative side of things, after 9 years as an outfit, guitarists Miku and Kanami continue to lay down fantastic riff after fantastic riff but still struggle in a key hard rock band aspect – the solos. While there's plenty of these in the album, mostly servings as bridges in true rock tradition, and they are all technically proficient and tasteful, said ones lack the necessary spark or catchiness to be truly memorable, a blunder that continues to plague the band after a decade in the spotlight. Quite funnily, the exceptions to this being the post-chorus small solos that the band insert both into
I'll and
Unleash!!!, which perfectly compliment Saiki's frantic vocals.
Tracks
Balance and
Influencer are the most unique songs in the album. The former, however, is closer to BAND-MAID madlibs than an actual song, a disjointed track that feels quite like feeding the entirety of BAND-MAID's discography to an AI and releasing the result; it'd be
almost bad – if the band members weren't so skilled at their instruments. The latter, second single
Influencer finds BAND-MAID amidst a throwback to the split focus of
Conqueror, putting differing emphasis Saiki's braggish vocals and Misa's sweet bass that'd make for another banger of a song...if it wasn't so beget by a terminal case of japanglish lyrics that seems ripped out straight off Google Translate, a sadly not uncommon problem that still troubles Japanese bands to this day.
Overall, despite the break, the promises of a fresh direction and a small (but sweet) change of costumes,
Unleash is just another BAND-MAID release...but is that really such an issue when the baseline is so good?
Track scores:
- From Now On -
4/5
- Balance -
2.5/5
- Unleash!!! -
4/5
- Sense -
4/5
- I'll -
5/5
- Corallium -
4/5
- Influencer -
3/5
- Hate? -
4/5
