Review Summary: Pop Megaload: Total Overkill
There are albums whose idiosyncrasies need to be sugarcoated or sensationalised in order to seem palatable, whose attraction needs unpacking for first-timers, whose mystery needs to be largely demystified in order to make sense on paper. These are the bread and butter of most debate about music, the records which tend to hold the most value for those who consider themselves equipped with a modicum of taste.
But then there are albums like
Sigma, which thrive by virtue of being the tightest collection of no-nonsense, hard-slamming bangers you could possibly have bursting through your speakers at any given moment. Used as a shorthand for vocalist Reol, producer GigaP and visual designer Okiku, REOL is a pop wunderkind as accustomed to Oricon success as to engineering the benchmark for innovation this deep into mainstream territory. They take their cues less from J-Pop contemporaries and much more from Western EDM, hip-hop, K-Pop and a range of associated sub-genres that blend together as the perfect storm of crass, ultra-infectious club-ready kitsch. Although they technically disbanded in 2017, all the material released under Reol’s name since has seen the trio’s collaboration intact, so this can be dismissed as a formality that likely took place for contract reasons.
Anyway,
Sigma is the point at which it all came together for REOL. This album is a straight rush of larger than life, aggressively catchy, obnoxiously intense electro pop, any given moment of which sounds equally well pitched to burn down the dancefloor at a stormer of a club night, or to ignite the hearts of otakus in YouTube comment threads across and beyond the known world. Not exactly the most original or auspicious mission statement, but the amount of talent and extravagance packed into this album set it up as a one-in-a-million knockout for anyone remotely disposed to this kind of thrill; there’s no overstating the degree to which the group continually get it right here, boosting the album’s bazillion hooks through the roof with a staggering range of flourish and craftfulness.
It all starts with Reol herself. Her chops are solid as hell, supporting both a confident higher range and a husky lower tone that she milks for a lip-curling level of swagger. Her style is brash and intense, but she constantly mixes up her delivery and spits out asides like a vending machine sick of your spare change. Her vocal parts are frenetically busy, but delivered with an intimidating level of nuance and precision on the periphery; the whole package is fiercely personable. Crucially, the audacity of her style holds its own against the production freakouts that supercharge this album to high heaven; the two together should come with an epilepsy warning. GigaP throws in more vocal modulations than most producers would know what to do with, yet
Sigma avoids the Producer Playing A Singer effect that has turned countless decently conceived pop albums into plastic; the lengths to which he stretches Reol’s vocals rarely overpower the pyrotechnics she throws out sans modulation, and so these accents never come off as a suspiciously flashy crutch. It helps that the majority of these tracks are either written or co-written by Reol, a convenient reflection of the way she and GigaP play to each other’s strengths.
However, the production and writing are the gamebreaker and the real reason
Sigma has aged surprisingly well since its release. While the high-octane pop fever that drives the album remains resolutely maximalist from start to finish, GigaP’s mastery of pastiche and variation underpin it with a far stronger sense of craft and enduring appeal than a preliminary listen would suggest. REOL’s sound is reimagined time and time again with a dazzling breadth and focus: it’s all over “DetaramE KiddinG”’s trap beats, “Konoyo Loading”’s crass bitpop, “Yoiyoi Kokon”’s sampling of world melodies, “Give Me a Break Stop”’s best K-Pop impersonation, and “RE:”’s liberal foray into PC Music. Opener “VIP KID” has more in common with Eurodance than stereotyped J-Pop, and “404 Not Found” sets out a hilarious but surprisingly successful synthesis of emotional balladry with brostep breakdowns. Even more remarkable is how cohesive these styles come across when stacked against each other;
any given moment here defines the album as well as any other. Reol and GigaP’s writing is slick and confident, resulting in a staple sound distinct enough to hold the album together in all its various guises.
In any case,
Sigma holds its own as one of the most gratifying pop tour de forces of the last few years. It epitomises the maximalist electro-fied ADHDisms that go as a by-word for J-Pop in the minds of many while displaying a forward thinking sensibility in the way it samples pop conventions and aesthetics from across the board. Most importantly, it’s unbelievably fun - fun in a way that goes well beyond the connotations of the various anime, vocaloid and YouTube fancircle trappings that seem surround this album’s watering hole; this is an album that can be reliably dropped in a room of drunk friends to elicit “where do I find this?” questions from people across the board (trust me). There’s easily enough overkill and ridiculousness here to deter anyone accustomed to keeping a stiff upper lip at the mention of any pop not of the frigid arthouse strain, but those prepared to get over themselves will likely find themselves more at home with the Good Times crowd than they would have imagined.
