Review: chariots - Yami

I think the sheer averageness of this single forced me to forget to review it until almost a month later...

1. MIDNIGHT PLEASURE
2. Anmoku
3. Dilettante

As I said before, this single is just plain average. Hai far and away destroys this and it's not even as good as Hikari in my opinion. Midnight Pleasure's that standard S.E. intro that's supposed to set the mood for the rest of the single but it doesn't do that here. It's definitely much better than Fall ash was so I'll give the single credit for that but it's nowhere near as captivating as cigar was. Let's also add on top that this is the only part of the single that even touches the "darkness" aspect that I hoped Yami would go for. It has this dark, foreboding atmosphere that's immediately forgotten the minute Anmoku starts up. Let's just say that even though this S.E. is a little on the boring side it has it's place on the single and isn't a complete fucking joke for once.

Both Anmoku and Dilettante are pretty lame, the latter moreso than the first. Dilettante is nothing more than a veiled copy (and a thin one at that) of reversal from the Hai single. Dilettante misses out on the charm that reversal had and it doesn't help in part that Riku's auto-tuned "dilettante, dilettante, dile-ttan-te WOAH" are annoying to the point of the track being unlikeable. Seriously, I think the man says the word at least 20 times the entire track and that's a modest guess. If I wanted to listen to this mess, I'd listen to reversal. Dilettante, fuck off.

Anmoku was attempting to channel both some Doku and some Canvas ni Kakareru wa Haiiro de Nuritsubusareta Risou no Kimi and if it were fucking executed properly this could've been brilliant. Anmoku doesn't exactly hit the spot but it isn't a complete miss either - I was just hoping for a bit more. The saving grace to this track is that Riku doesn't "anmoku, anmoku an-mo-ku WOAH" his way through four and a half minutes of mediocre, atmospheric rock. I could at least listen to this again.

Yami definitely wasn't the single I was hoping would be chariots last release as a band since the other members finally realized how lame chariots was and decided to leave Riku to deal with it. Sure, they have a compilation album coming out in a month or so but what good songs besides Kira, Jade, Doku and Canvas ni Kakareru wa Haiiro de Nuritsubusareta Risou no Kimi can Riku find to put on it? Not many I tell you - chariots never really hit the spot and while they come out with music pretty rapidly most of it is lukewarm and doesn't do my listening craves justice. Riku, go back to Phantasmagoria where you sounded better and the music was repetitive but enjoyable, instead of repetitive and annoying.

Average. Fuck this single. Go listen to Hai. Or better yet, don't listen to this band at all. You aren't missing anything.

Review: Lycaon - cordyceps sinensis

I need to talk about this single before Royal Order comes out.

If you were around the internet looking for this single a few months ago then you know the story. If you don't I'll sum it up really quickly: Lycaon makes a very bad business decision to limit these to 500 copies in Like an Edison stores and otakus that buy anything with the word "Kuniitichiwa" muttered in it lost their math ability to reason that 500 copies of a CD can't be bought by 1000+ people. Said elitists didn't want to share their warez and butthurt people bawwed up the internet until someone leaked this. They held a tighter vagina clamp on Declaration of War and A Box in Beautiful but then Lycaon kicked them in the dick and said all three were going to be on Royal Order so the elitist whores bawwed futilely and decided to share once they realized their rarez weren't going to be so rarez anymore.

On to something a little more respectable, Cordyceps Sinensis sits between Declaration of War and A Box in Beautiful when it comes to how good these concept singles were. All three of them blow their previous work out of the water and make me a bigger fan of them now. cordyceps sinensis is a very hard, catchy song with lots of high pitched grunting mixed with a very addictive opening and reverb yelling. I actually like the pre-chorus for the alternating guitars although the regular chorus isn't that bad at all. I can't summon it in my mind at will although listening to it doesn't make my orifices bleed.

Honestly speaking I can't remember anything that they've done previous to this song that channels any of the raw energy that they put into this song. What comes closest is The 1st degree genocide holic but this trumps that song in plenty of ways. If you're looking to get into Lycaon start at Ambrozia and then skip to this because I feel chains of collar wasn't up to par. This was a definite bounce back and a nice treat from a band that can handle both hard and soft.

Final Judgment: Pretty Good.