[quote="Kaze no Mirai"]I bought the album on HMV, and I wont get it until Friday at the earliest. Just that some people that already have it don't want to share it. [/quote]

I hope to see it up on Azn mp3 by tomorrow.

But I'm not getting my hopes up--see the music thread.

It's just matter of time...

It's a skimpy 2,000円　in the Japan itunes music store... not that that helps any...

if you set your computer region to japan, you can buy it. but i'd never pay for mp3s, lol.

[quote="Marekenshin"]if you set your computer region to japan, you can buy it. but i'd never pay for mp3s, lol.[/quote]
Can you? I was under the impression (and I think the correct one) that it's based on your itunes apple account. The problem is that you need a valid Japanese Address and credit card to create a Japanese one. With a few minutes of searching I did find these psuedo work-arounds [url=http://icruise.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/buying-songs-from-the-japanese-itunes-store/]here[/url] and [url=http://www.tuaw.com/2006/12/14/shopping-at-itunes-japan-from-america/]here[/url]. Of course the album would be up online before one could actually do either, and as you say, not many people really want to pay for mp3s, I certainly don't :0)

you can get it from me on soulseek, so if you really want it, i'll try to stay on soulseek more, but i'm in japan, and you guys are in the states, so you'll have to be on at the right times.

So far i like Youngster, Boathouse, The Pleasure song, and century creepers the best.

Yay! Schmatzee FTW. Thanks tons...was going to go to sleep cause it's near 6am here, but i think i'll do some more homework and wait

[url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=08KWDK0C]WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP![/url]

Files courtesy of schmatzee (thanks again).
[i]
enjoy.[/i]

Allow for me to reenact the events of this morning.

Setting: Jomel's dorm room. 9am.

[i]A cell phone rings. Jomel is half-asleep, as his roommate is simultaneously walking into the room after his early exam[/i]

Jomel: Dude, get that for me...

[i]Jomel inspects the caller ID, but finds he does not know the caller.[/i]

Jomel: .... hello?

Caller: Hey it's poit';kjfa's;dl 'poeu ';kjdfa';slfkj a';kaf

Jomel, still groggy and dazed: Who?

Caller: GoldenRhino! ^___________^~~~kudesaidesubaka

[i]Jomel assumes that IM has been nuked by the fatasses at the buffet and that he will have a lovely morning of cleaning up the corpses[/i]

Grey: Dude, good news! I uploaded the album. etc. etc. I didn't wake you, did I?

Jomel: Yeah, you did. YOUR POKEMANS SHALL PAY IN BLOOD!*

Grey: I WILL STAND VICTORIOUS IN GLORIOUS POKEMAN COMBAT!

Jomel: HA! IT SHALL BE I WHO STANDS UPON THE BODIES OF YOUR DEFEATED POKEMANS! SEE YOU AT THE JOY LUCK CLUB, BITCH.

Grey: TOP O' THE MORNIN' ROUNDEYE.

[i]Jomel hangs up his phone and proceeds to furiously rub one out to a picture he drew of Ranma 1/2. [/i]

*=dramatization

[quote="GoldenRhino"][url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=08KWDK0C]WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP![/url]

Files courtesy of schmatzee (thanks again).
[i]
enjoy.[/i] [/quote]

Thank you both of you, thank you thank you

I have one of most important exams in my life so far tommorow.. But I gotta listen to this, haha.

First impressions time.

Wake up! dodo - I still really like this one. Probably my favorite on the album.

Youngster - really poppy and catchy. I really like it.

Propose - I wish the distortion were harder like in the live, but still a great track. Maybe second favorite.

Scarecrow - eh, it's good, I guess. Not so much to my taste, but still pretty good.

Boat House - I didn't like the chorus on the first lesson, but I'm thinking this song is actually quite good now.

Pleasure Song - sounds like they're trying that dual guitar intro that worked so well for My Girl. Doesn't work as well here. Decent song, but one of my least favorites on this album. Too modern rock radio, I guess.

Serious Plan - I like it except that the chorus is stupid. Come on, Sawao, you can do better than "SERIOUS PLAN! SERIOUS PLAN! SERIOUS PLAN!... "

Skinny Blues - really cool chorus and solo. I feel like the verses could have been better, but it should be a cool live song.

Private Kingdom - lots of weird shit going on here; reminds me of a Beck song. Pretty good.

Century Creepers - obviously came out of a March of the God jam, but it works. Very strong song with a good vocal track. I wish the solo were fanning instead of just octaves, though. Something in the style of Last Dinosaur's would have built up the crescendo more effectively in my opinion, but I'll forgive you this time, Manabe. ;]

Sweet Baggy Days - same problem as Serious Plan. I always feel cheated when the chorus is just the name of the song repeated over and over. I'd say this is the weakest song on the album.

Although I always feel slightly disappointed when I hear the new pillows stuff and it never measures up to their glory days, this album really is pretty good. Wake Up (^3) is not on par with their best, and they probably will never again match Happy Bivouac, Please Mr. Lostman, or Living field, but this album is comparable in quality to Smile or Thank You, My Twilight. There are quite a few really cool songs, and none that I really dislike and will always skip over, unlike Penalty Life - My Foot.

I only listened to the album once(still got 1 more song left to listen)..

And I must say I really like it. I try not to look at it in perspective of the pillows past work, which is unfair imo. If they were to do their "glory" days stuff, everyone would sue them for being not oryginal, if they do something different - people don't like it.

I will give more impressions once I'm done with my exams.

p.s.: Thanks for ripping and sharing the album again!

thanks you, schmatzee.

downloading now.

Alright, here are my impressions.

Wake Up! dodo: The more I listen to this song, the less I like it. It's not horrible, just rather boring. It doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Youngster (Kent Arrow): Little more than a filler track. I thought it was rather dull.

Propose: Eh, it's alright. I like the slight resemblance to GNB's Ano Ko 1mm Demo Chokkai blardeblar, but the otherwise, not very interesting.

Scarecrow: I didn't like it when I first heard it, I thought it was good when I heard the full song, and now I'm somewhere in the middle. It's alright, but the solo is the best part and probably saves the song.

Boat House: I thought this song was going to be a throwaway, but I actually liked it. Probably because it reminded me of the early nineties stuff - at some points it resembles Ano Koro ni Modotte.

Pleasure Song: I really liked this until I realized it sounded way, way, too much like My Girl - which isn't really a bad thing. Nice guitar, still one of the album's better tracks.

Serious Plan: Pretty forgettable. It sounds like it came out of Good Dreams, which is not a good thing at all. It's not awful, but the album seriously needs some strong tracks right about now, and this song just isn't doing it.

Skinny Blues: This was a much better song than I expected. Manabe's solo is intense - I don't think I've ever heard him play that fast before. One of the better songs on Wake Up.

Private Kingdom: I really liked the way this song started off, but it didn't stay as interesting as I'd hoped. Again, nothing really *bad* about it, but it doesn't have anything particularly interesting to make it memorable.

Century Creepers: This is more like it. Sawao gets some real emotion going, with a much-needed blast of energy that recalls Happy Bivouac's most energetic moments.

Sweet Sweet Baggy Days: Easily the album's best track. The title-chorus is mildly irritating, but otherwise, this song is quite good.

This album pretty much turned out like I expected - not horrible, but not building on My Foot, which was a major improvement over the prior two albums. Wake Up is better than Good Dreams, not quite as good as Penalty Life, and not nearly as good as My Foot. The biggest problem is that they've pretty much run out of ideas for the upbeat pop rock song, and they won't try doing something that's darker or stylistically different. Unfortunately, their newfound mainstream success suggests this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Downloaded and listened.

Right now, as an overall feel/sense of the album, I'd probably put this on par with My Foot, possibly a little better. I have to say that I really agree with Jomei with the whole chorus = title of song. It got really annoying when that happened while I was listening to Serious Plan and Sweet Baggy Days. But, other than that, most of these songs are pretty okay and I haven't run into any songs so far that I have an incredible urge to skip over, which is a good sign I guess.

Songs I really like so far: Youngster (it's pretty simple yet really really catchy/energetic), Pleasure Song (guitar work is pretty up there when comparing to previous songs), Century Creepers (really like this track, has an interesting feel to it)