Unlike the previous release, “Warufuzake”, which was recorded under the ‘traditional industry’ ‘big label’, this album falls back into the category of indie titles. Doujinshi, if you somehow prefer Nippon over English. So, basically, all that means just there has been less hype over it this time. Honestly, hype hardly can make good music sound better, and hype around bad music isn’t a proper thing at all...
”Algorithm” was presented at 86th Comiket, the venue being the very essence of doujinshi subculture. Moreover, Utsu-P explicitly refers to “Algo” as the fourth his album, with the third being “Moksha”. So “Warufuzake”, despite being a ‘commercial breakthrough’ etc., is disregarded as a mere spin-off from the circle MY SONG IS SHIT. And this circle should still be considered the main form for producer’s creative work. At least for the music from the heavier side of spectrum.
The continuity within the circle is clearly visible from the cover design. “Algo” shares the same style used in three previous full albums. That means the art drawn by the hand of Hansi-sama. The Master portrays four digital girls crammed into even more digital cubicle, lit by dead cold light, their faces expressing (presumably) the lyrical themes of the album
“Algo” hasn’t avoided entirely the feature that plagued “Warufuzake”, namely drawing the material from previous releases, but does it to a far lesser extent. “Chocolate On’na Noko”, for instance, is rather welcomed addition, since the track was released on a compilation “0004: A galaxy odyssey” (2012) which now seems to be a bit obscure. On the other hand, “CR Dokutoku Na Sekai Kan”, the real backbone of Utsu-P’s “Zoku” EP (2012/2013), is quite another case… Both songs we re-recorded to uplift their sound to the tune of the new album.
The first track, “Tsui No Fantasy”, greets us with this specific sound right from the beginning. Though the greeting might feel like a kick in the guts for somebody, I prefer to call it ‘a warm welcome’ :) The guitars are downtuned mercilessly, coloring the music in darker, more sinister, bizarre, wretched tones. The drop we enjoyed in the most grisly moments of “Warufuzake” is now a common feature for the most of the new album’s tracks.
Combine this with unyielding harsh, oppressive industrial sequences used to enhance the certain parts, and you’ve got pretty rich, intense and atmospheric surround. But these grim instances are only one facet of the new Utsu-P’s work. Because, as we venture further, the producer offers generously a peculiar variety of styles – in his accustomed way.
I have to praise one aspect I failed to find in previous Utsu-P’s CDs – a great layout of tracks within the album. The first five songs are a prime example. They fuse perfectly, thoughtfully, gradually shiftng the underlying theme, gaining steam where you think it can’t go any higher and finally reaching the boiling point at “Imperfect Animals”. During these metamorphoses, we get from ominous industrial of the opening track, quite naturally, through blatant picoreamo, to absolutely mind-blowing pop-punk (an extremely incongruous combination of words, but fits awesomely to such extremely incongruous music) infused heavily with the elements of other subgenres to the point it resembles mainstream examples no more than Calne Ca resembles Hatsune Miku. After that shocking therapy the album slows down a bit, but a nice taste in blending the tracks right way lasts for another three songs.
Metalcore elements in “Algo” are more prominent. Utsu-P used them earlier too, but here he takes a step up. The main difference is not in quantity maybe, but in quality. Metalcore riffs are sharper, smarter, they are really distinguished compared to generic nu metal parts which sometimes sound a bit stale. Utsu-P employs more complex, swaying rhythms usually, and faster tempos than average ‘mundane’ works of the sub-genre. The breakdowns are pretty decent dirty beasts, done with originality and skill. Electronics helps there, most notably dubstep/metalstep used in several tracks. But, as with the other genres used in his works, Utsu-P takes it lightly, to the degree I wonder some of his twists being a joke, like certain ‘lightweight metalcore-ish’ parts in “Minagoroshi No Magic” (#3).
The diversity of guitar playing techniques, from brisk light strokes to dazzling blizzard of sound, is very impressive. More importantly, the skill of making a whole image from such different pieces truly make this album stand out. Swiftly changing the style, tempo and mood, the producer creates novel and characteristic sound. The bass guitar, traditionally, plays a major role too. Its work, often quick-paced and elaborate, brings in even more variation in delivering the unique flavor. In several tracks the bassu has that rough, jittering tinge that moves the overall sounding a tiny bit closer to djent.
The electronics section has developed from earlier works. Not in terms of ‘broader’ use, again, but in the recklessness (and aggression) Utsu-P shows when diving into synthetic sound. Dubstep is one of the favorites. Different songs rely on electronics at substantially varying degrees. But when the producer decides to use it, he feels free to do whatever he could imagine. Here we should mention Utsu-P’s independent, entirely electronic release “Okazu”, published April this year. “Okazu” contains remixes of the author’s ‘regular’ metal songs, and is based on material Utsu-P used at Voca Nico Night February 2013 performance. The influence of this album is rather noticeable.
Utsu-P at DJ controller on Voca Nico Night. Photo by PCオーディオfan.
The producer keeps his attitude here, playing with certain clichés eagerly. “Monkey Dance No Sen’nou Jutsu” (#6) is a good example: the song mimics the rhythm and tempo of dance music, and the bridge is perfectly identical to the sequence from some trance set. The guitars sound way more sickening in such environment, which makes a splendid complement to rather disturbing lyrics.
The experiments don’t stop here. We have “Alghorithmic Kabukicho” (#8), a neat bright jazzy piece. Alas, too superficial to earn many points, but an interesting try anyway.
Piano, a relic of early producer’s works crawls back in this CD. And that’s for the good (forgive my nostalgia :) ). But the style is not always that we’ve been used to - see “Monkey Dance…” again, which can add remarkably complex keyboards line to the ton of its exclusive features. Symphonic sequences are used as well - in “MikUSABBATH” (Bonus), quite expertly, rendering this gorgeous track into true apocalyptic tones.
The drums are mostly unremarkable, hardly evolved much from previous Utsu-P’s CDs, but do the job well. Percussion offers some interesting patterns here and there, but doesn’t even try to gain more listeners’ attention. The spurts of double-bass sound most engaging, being used infrequently in more intense moments of the songs. There is a dubious moment as well: snare drum’s attack in many tracks is too sharp and overpowered, in my opinion. The other side of this effect must be hushed cymbals. I personally prefer the opposite balance… So let’s consider it a part of album’s sound signature.
To sum it up, I can’t say the Utsu-P’s music’s become ‘less brutal’. Nor ‘more brutal’. It’s just the wrong system of coordinates. The music has grown more diverse. More complicated. More independent. More acute. But, however these developments may be welcomed, they cannot even be scaled to ‘heaviness’ axis, much less to vastly personalized and therefore vague ‘worse-better’ one.
The brightest moment of Utsu-P’s music is still the same jaunty, light-hearted, full of energy and totally wild mood that forms the essence of the songs. The essence brewed with hot instrumental rash, with quite a punkish nature, if not in music features directly then in its spirit. One of the key elements of this atmosphere are catchy motifs of choruses, singed with a high-pitched voices by the performers. Remove it – and part of the magic is gone, like in “Chocolate On’na Noko” (#7). Yet this magic is not a universal solution. It requires a lot of effort not to slip into self-repeating, and for a few times the producer is balancing on this verge precariously.
But one thing came as a surprise for me: all that bashing vigor cannot overcome in my memory a few subtle, intimate, lyrical moments Utsu-P decided to hide in barbed wire of his songs. And by ‘a few’ I mean _literally_ several beats. Painfully rare instances yet powerful enough to yearn for them… These are not very typical for Utsu-P. But he use them with genuine mastery here, which makes me wonder what if he’d tried to expand in that direction some more.
Oh, and should I say that all these elements, from hammering breakdowns to piano melodies, are integrated seamlessly into smooth yet raging, devastating yet unbroken torrent of music. Awesome music.
The vocals were always one of the strongest Utsu-P’s points, but for “Algo” this claim may be not as solid as usual. Don’t get me wrong though, most of the tracks feature amazing vocal parts, intense, frenzied, fully believable. But several are a notch down, lacking mostly from a technical perspective, being rather unpolished. Utsu-P is reluctant to upgrade to V3 Miku version, still the depth and range of shades the producer draws from Appends should inspire awe. Of course, that’s due to Miku is given some of the most challenging songs of the album (“Uchuubito No, I Love You”, #12, and “MiKUSABBATH”, Bonus), where she performs excellently. Gumi is grand, as always. Rin, a Vocaloid Utsu-P mastered to a level out of reach for his colleagues, keeps on blazing wildly. Interestingly, her timbre seems to be the highest-powered of all the Vocaloids present here. Maybe it’s a quirk of mixing settings, maybe the usually higher pitches the producer sets for her, but Rin manages to outsing even the mightiest instrumental sequences as easily as you please.
The newcomer, V flower, falls behind her more renowned teammates. She sounds lifeless and hollow, the metallic tinge of her voice exacerbating the impression. The whole picture is even bleaker, since flower performs in one of the most hot-blooded, fiery songs of the album (“Zettai Ongaku De Odore”, #4). There may be explanations to this though. First, the musical nature of the song implies some degree of syntheticity. Second, this is the first heavy piece with V flower I’ve heard (small wonder, as for now there is overwhelming amount of original flower’s songs on Nico. Thirty-seven. Miku collects that toll in a day), so I could miss some point. We’ll see.
Machine-gun sputter outbreaks are not exclusive for metal area, being a hallmark of Vocaloid works. But in Utsu-P’s music they get special savor: wild, sharp, intense. Especially the distorted variety, which is much less common (reminded me of Maximum the Hormone somehow). The contrasts between ‘clean singing’ and shouting are quite thrilling. Speaking of brutalized vocals in general, the sound has little changed from previous producer’s releases. Maybe here is the root of my dissatisfaction from Vocaloid part of “Alghorithm”: too much expectation. Listening to a lot of works from different authors, seeing the impressive quality, you want serious progress from the most talented scene producer as well. Still, “Algo” has some surprises, for instance, nice attempt at guttural by Gumi at the beginning of “P.O.R.N.O.” (#9). Other ‘attempts’ are less prominent; I can’t help but pity the poor thing V flower whose distorted vocals are the weakest of all, much like the ‘clean’ ones…
There are two duet songs. In both girls work well in pairs, especially in “Imperfect Animals”, but even this one cannot reach the synergy impact delivered by “Kanbanmusume No Warufuzake” (2013).
So here is the only real ‘challenge’ for “Algorithm”: the bar was set very high by previous Utsu-P’s works. And competing with oneself might prove to be the toughest. Yet the tougher it gets the better for us fans :) And “Algo” must be a result of especially hard struggle :) You’re asking me about the outcome? C’mon, man!
WIN – WIN
Bottom line: Absolute Music Mosh, Vocaloid style.
Album’s
Album’s web page: http://assholewii.tumblr.com
There’re also links to order the CD from several merchants if you happen to live in Japan. If you don’t, you may opt for CDJapan:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEODAI-6500
With the grand total being around $45. Biting? There are rumors of releasing the album digitally on Itunes, but nothing concrete so far.
Minagoroshi No Magic | Covers etc.
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