Dress isn't doing it for me. Sadie was holding back and pretending to be professional and they ended up not performing with the energy that I've come to expect from their releases. 2/3 of this drags and the omnipresent heaviness is supposed to compensate for that X factor that they forgot to incorporate into their songwriting. It doesn't. If anything, it just makes everything sound like a low-tuned, distorted mess.
For example, why is it that Mao feels like in every verse he has to whisper instead of come up with a good vocal pattern? Granted, it does save Dress from rehashing the sound of Ice Romancer/ever but the low whispering gets drowned out by the guitars and bass. That chorus is also very repetitive and all Mao does is go up and down, louder and softer while he hits two or three notes the whole time. I don't remember the rest of it except for some washed out growling mixed with some piano and some programmed violins near the last chorus. I miss the aggressive, anger-ridden Sadie and I feel no passion (or Dir en grey influence for that matter - save that comparison for VAJRA's next single) from this song.
Insert joke here about DRESS and a dress's tendency to drag on the floor when it gets too long. This song should have been cut by two minutes.
I was going to review stormy heaven but I got to forbidden and forgot everything that wasn't the piano introduction on this song. That piano introduction was good and reminded me somewhat of WITHERING BLOOD's experimentation on UnsraW's GUILTY EP but then it just spirals down into more of the same and at the end you remember nothing worthy of praise. It's an underfed UNDEAD13+2 x GAIN hybrid and does nothing to differentiate itself from either one of those two eras. Once again, another song lacking that spark to put it over the top but at least this one is of an appropriate length.
forbidden's intro riff was interesting and this might be the only song I take away from this single. It sounds a lot like a deeper-tuned Kagerou but I'll take it considering it's a B-side and sounds like the only song Sadie spent time on. The electronic effects mixed with some lighter guitar lines gives the song depth and the twin guitar solo halfway through was unexpected. Hooray for no breakdowns and recycled riffs on at least one of these songs. Mao's singing is also good and he should have done work like this on the rest of this single. The only thing I really dislike is how the song ends abruptly but I can get over that given time.
The positive here is that this isn't as horrendous as the Kagerou single and the absence of a Black Stars track automatically pushes this into the 5/10 range. The negative is that this does nothing to progress their sound further. It's just more of the same that we've come to expect from Sadie and I want more. They're at the precipice of discovering a new self but they're too afraid to take that final step and do something new. The only song I'd take away from this is forbidden so at the end of the day it gets a 6/10 - completely average with just a sprinkling of "hey look we can do awesome unexpected things but we're just reluctant to" thrown in just for the last track.
