Review: VanessA - world. is. my. mind.

VanessA softened up :O

I actually expected this to happen though. Here's why.

The two composers of VanessA used to be Nao and Haruki. Both of them have very different compositional styles. Here's a quick list of a few of the songs each composed.

Nao -
P.S.D.
Retrospection
LUCY
[MA]RIA
I am Psychopath.
B.M.METAMORPHOSE-murder side-

Haruki -
Memory Lapse
Arlequin
alive=terror
Feel U
Danger
NEW WORLD
jack off
axina


Now that Nao left and Koichi doesn't write music, this band is relying solely upon the compositional merits of Haruki, who traditionally came as "second composer" when Nao was leading the band. Those that liked "old VanessA" liked Nao's version of brutal metal with lots of screams. We're probably never going to hear that again. That isn't excusing the single any and I'm going to download it now, but that's really why I expected world. is. my. mind. to be a big slap in the face compared to CHI[MA]IRA (trust me, it's been a while since I've reviewed that and the CD's grown on me a LOT. I just don't feel like editing it at the moment).

I can understand why some people are upset at the change of direction that VanessA's taken and I'm going to say something completely radical here: they haven't actually changed all that much. When it comes down to it, the only thing this CD is missing is Genki's roars. Sandwich any two old VanessA tracks in between any random track on this single and none of these would "sound out of place".

What seems to upset everyone greatly is the lack of ear-bleeding, esophagus splitting screeches that VanessA has become increasingly renowned for since alive=terror. Even though Haruki did compose alive=terror and ARLEQUIN the dymanics of the band have changed since Nao left the band and You took over. Nao probably told Haruki to cut shit like jack off out and stick with composing rough, speedy compositional numbers while You embraced a change in direction (because in all honesty if they kept the shtick up long enough they were bound to repeat themselves AND Haruki usually had the best song on the last two out of the three maxi's they've released so....yeah.)

So now on to the review:

NEW WORLD is definitely the softest A-side they've composed so far and it's not without it's schizo section. I think this song has the only time Genki uses something other than clean vocals (and I also lol at the fact that this was their preview on their OHP). VanessA knew we weren't going to like this at all xD

This sounds like a sped up version of FEEL U in many places. Still sounds like the other half of VanessA to me. 7/10 because even though it was digestable I was still missing some of the death voice that Genki used to have all throughout his track. Some more of that was definitely needed here.

jack off words can't describe how much I dislike this track. Perhaps I approached it hoping for it to be a harder song or perhaps something that didn't sound like a longer, less inspired version of NEW WORLD with some jazzy influence. However, I'm with everyone else that went "what the fuck happened to this band" on this track. In NEW WORLD. I could sense some of the old VanessA mixed in with Haruki's style but here it's just . Why the fuck does every VK band have to do some lame jazzy number that sucks anus? 4/10 for the solo, the portion after it and Koichi's nice basslines.

-axina- is more like what I want to hear from this band. Even if they decide to soften up their sound I do not want them throwing away their heavy metal roots. I sense some Vortex influence in the verses and I really do like the ominous bell over their guitar lines. If more of the single was like this instead of NEW WORLD./jack off I think a lot more people would enjoy this (I enjoy 2/3 of it just fine anyway). Oh, and I was wrong before - Genki does some roaring in this song before the second verse and during the fade out I think the members of the band attempted to do some screaming before failing and just spazzing out. What I DON'T like about this track is the bit of silence before the song starts up again a minute later for approximately 10 seconds before ending. It's completely pointless >.>

8/10 for axina

This single gets about a 6/10. There is no question that CHI[MA]IRA was better than this but if I give it a few listens I think parts of this will grow on me. I just can't bear to think that we'll never get the truly heavy VanessA back again because even though I liked this, I liked THAT a whole lot more.