Review: Lycaon - EROS

I want the creepy bassist and the pink-haired tranny back.

Seriously Lycaon, what the fuck happened? ID is the lamest SE you've ever come up with - it even beats flowing in terms of lameness. But even as this went on, I retain my hope.

VERDICT: n/a

Then EROS comes in.

As much as I want to like it, you made it damn near impossible. It's earsplittingly bad to the point where I'm pretending it doesn't exist. The longer it goes on, the more I want it to end. For all intents and purposes, I'm going to call those elements they incorporated (badly) "country swing" and they make me feel like I'm in a bad strip club where Yuuki's squealing at me while he's removing his thong. Not good. Rito and Satoshi's needless twin guitar melody doesn't mesh with all the crap going on in the background and I'm too busy applying brain bleach to remember anything noteworthy Hiyuu did. I know there was a poorly-placed bass interlude but other than that I can't care.

VERDICT: ...

PINK MILK WITH DRUGS MY DRINK. sounds odd. I'm going to call what Yuuki does "vocal vomit" here because once he starts he doesn't shut up ever. He keeps attempting different things but from the badly processed barking to the YEA YEA YEA's and the UH UH UH's make what he does do right inconsequential because sooner or later he's going to do something to nullify it. It's psychotic but not in the good way. It could have used some fine-tuning and a Yuuki that dropped his vocals just a bit.

VERDICT: meh

Mary is the only good track on this single and it's great in comparison to everything else on here but it's just an average track when compared to the rest of their output. This is straightforward Lycaon with their new guitar tuning and it's the first song where I'm not polarized enough to be able to appreciate Hiyuu's bass lines. Yuuki also doesn't screw up in the vocals either and the guitar melody actually WORKS. Hey Rito, we need more songs like this and not that disaster called "the rest of this single".

VERDICT: OK. It's listenable. I might even like it after a while!

MAD NEUROSIS CHILD isn't bad. The effects they put over Yuuki's voice work to his benefit in my book - I detest it when vocalists put effects over their voice but it makes him sound less annoying so I'll take it. However, I find the guitar tuning to be ill-fitting for this song - it's supposed to be heavy but where they have it set takes a lot of that away. Still, this is the song on the CD closest to their older concept of "hunting instinct" - at least in sound anyway.

VERDICT: Why wasn't this the single?

I've taken to not writing too many reviews because of time constraints but this is just exceptionally bad and the fans need to know what they're in for. They are capable of SO MUCH BETTER so I don't what happened but Lycaon needs to tune the guitars down a notch and Yuuki needs to lay off the helium. Back to the drawing board guys, and this time come back with something respectable. I'm counting on you.

EDIT: I just glanced over the lyrics and...Yuuki screams YEAH in almost every song. Just worth noting that whenever he can't think of something worthwhile to sing he just screams that.

Review: BORN - RED HOT COBRA

Cue the awards for the worst album cover of 2010 goes to...BORN!

01. Cobra

02. Radical Hysteria

No but really, how the hell does that cover have anything to do with a cobra? I don't see one. Whatever they were going for with that cover, the colors they chose definitely did not work. I'm just going to assume they pasted a cobra of some sort on the cover since anything else would have made even less sense than the cover does already.

Questionable artwork aside, this is actually a very good single. It seems that BORN has hit a stride of quality composing after their Sakura single and this one is no different. It comes packaged with two tracks as different as night and day, yet they're both so good it doesn't really matter. The single, Cobra, starts off with some ominous sound effects and a crooning Ryouga before it cycles through sadness, anger, rage, a chorus that doesn't feel like a chorus and then returns right back to the ominous sound effects once more. They definitely had an idea of where they wanted to go with this and it shows; the only problem here is that it took them this long to figure out what they wanted to do as a unit. I would have figured that after cycling through two bands without a member change, this would be the first thing you release under your new name.

But I can forgive Abnormal Head Machine after this song :)

Radical Hysteria is definitely the more accessible track of the two. It follows their punky rock badass attitude with some catchy guitar lines and a memorable vocal performance. I completely enjoy it until I remember this song has some really ridiculous lyrics. "Suck by dick or die?" Really Ryouga, that has about as much lyrical substance as your average Dirty South rapper and the Engrish isn't helping your case either. I'd be willing to look the other way because admittedly, this hiccup has nothing on Sadie's BLACK STARS or your later creation "Sasabari C" (which would be an utter failure if it weren't for the fact that it's so damn catchy!) but if you're going to open your mouth and blabber all over the microphone, at least transcribe lyrics in that booklet of yours that has some real meaning.

If this is what "BORN" represents, then this is definitely one band worth sticking around for. Just sod off with the stupid lyrics.