I'm not going to base anything or make any conclusions off of low bitrate, short snippets of these songs. So I'll wait until I actually have the album in my hands, but I did listen to the Melody clip just to see, and I honestly do like the song. At least what we got on the Pied Piper DVD (do love Sawao's introduction of it too). I'm just hoping that this album is better than Pied Piper. I mean, we really can't get that much worse than Pied Piper, unless Sawao is giving us a bunch of stuff on the level of Ladybird Girl. I still have hopes for this album though.

Dear IM, fuck you all.

Love, Mare.

[quote="Marekenshin"]Dear IM, fuck you all.

Love, Mare.[/quote]
Best post of the year.

How can you not love Ladybird Girl? One of the best songs on that album for me.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]

Sawao really has to kick this habit of writing really "novelty" one-trick pony songs like YOUR ORDER and LIFE SIZE LIFE. Manabe's riffs have been getting increasingly "quirky" since around Tokyo Bambi/it's solo. Not really their typical pop rock sound, not really rocky/bluesy, just sort of...funhouse ditzing around. I don't know how to explain it.
[/quote]

Nothing in the album sounded even slightly interesting besides Dance with God and Lemon Drops. I agree, I can't even tell what genre this stuff falls under, it's not pop-rock, and it's not Ladybird girl-esque pop either. Whatever this is, I'm not digging it. It seems like Sawao is writing songs that are JUST passable, like, you can listen to them once and say "Well, that wasn't terrible, but I've already forgotten how it goes." There just isn't anything that stands out about them, and it seems like lately, their albums are one or two good/great songs with an ever-increasing number of "meh" tracks. Then again, we say this every time they release a new album. I'm sure Mare is tired of most of IM complaining about this, but I don't think any of us are asking Sawao to rewrite Hybrid Rainbow or anything, it would just be nice to have a really solid album without filler junk.

I hate to join the wolf pack on this one, but from what I heard in those previews... I'm definitely not feeling too hot about this album being released on my Birthday... some of those tracks seemed... completely strange. Like, "Beyond the Moon" I have no fucking idea what the hell Sawao was going for on that one.

From we have in the previews, I'm going to have a hard time believing this album will even come out on par with PIED PIPER... it might just be the worse pillows album ever.

Of course, these are just short previews... but seriously. The lead guitar...? WHAT LEAD GUITAR. Without Manabe's active lead lines, the pillows aren't the pillows anymore. Some of those songs just seemed like power-chords completely. That's what made me fall in love with the pillows... great song writing combined with perfect lead guitar. In what we have as of now, I see flawed song writing combined with barely any impressive lead... It pains me to hear this from the pillows.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]Lemon Drops: Best track of the album, hands down. Actually good shit here. Gives me a really Over Amp/Kim Deal feel. This should have been the single, instead of Ameagari.[/quote]

Damn, Grey beat me to the "best song on dis album" call this time. But yeah, Lemon Drops is our winner. A few others piqued my interest a little bit, but I guess we'll see. I'm not terribly optimistic to say the least.

[quote="Tidusauron12"]I hate to join the wolf pack on this one, but from what I heard in those previews... I'm definitely not feeling too hot about this album being released on my Birthday... some of those tracks seemed... completely strange. Like, "Beyond the Moon" I have no fucking idea what the hell Sawao was going for on that one.

From we have in the previews, I'm going to have a hard time believing this album will even come out on par with PIED PIPER... it might just be the worse pillows album ever.

Of course, these are just short previews... but seriously. The lead guitar...? WHAT LEAD GUITAR. Without Manabe's active lead lines, the pillows aren't the pillows anymore. Some of those songs just seemed like power-chords completely. That's what made me fall in love with the pillows... great song writing combined with perfect lead guitar. In what we have as of now, I see flawed song writing combined with barely any impressive lead... It pains me to hear this from the pillows.[/quote]

ITT Tidus doesn't know shit about writing a chorus, of course there isn't going to be any active lead going on there. Let's look at say I don't know, EVERY PILLOWS CHORUS EVER. You like Hybrid Rainbow right? Too bad there's no active lead in the chorus, without that active lead, it pains me to hear it from the pillows.

The previews are just short snippets. Can anybody honestly say that they'd love all our favorite pillows songs if all we heard was about ten seconds out of the middle of a chorus without any of the buildup to get there? STFU and GTFO Mai Raifu.

Also, gotta change what I said before:

[quote="Marekenshin"]Dear IM, fuck most of you.

Love, Mare.[/quote]

Goddamit, I hate it when you do this.

And I hate when people jump on the bitchwagon without good cause. You don't think the snippets sound promising? That's cool. See Jomei's post. You judge the entire album based off of them? You're being a jackass. See my Obamatar.

EDIT: PS Tidus, I'm not just bitching at you, I just noticed a specific point in your post that needed refuting.

[quote="Marekenshin"]And I hate when people jump on the bitchwagon without good cause. You don't think the snippets sound promising? That's cool. See Jomei's post. You judge the entire album based off of them? You're being a jackass. See my Obamatar.

EDIT: PS Tidus, I'm not just bitching at you, I just noticed a specific point in your post that needed refuting.[/quote]


I'm not judging the entire album based off of just those snippets... it's just the snippets combined with what we've seen with the pillows since Good Dreams/My Foot... a decline in lead guitar details and songwriting on Sawao's part.

You can't make an adequate judgment on the entire album from just those small snippets... but I like to think that after listening to the all the pillows discography for a while, I have a good feel on their music (this does seem like a genre shifter type album though, so maybe I should be more open minded). I'm not making a final judgment, but I have a very strong feeling about this album. I can't wait to hear it, and I've already pre-ordered it.

For some reason, I already feel like this album might not be for me. Not necessarily like it will be a bad album... but that I may not personally enjoy it myself. It's like you say, there's not much evidence out yet, and I'll have to wait until the albums out to be sure. I hope my feeling is wrong... and it might be.

Hello my friends, I humbly request you to take out the earplugs and nostalgia goggles. To say this is worse than Wake Up x3.. worse than Pied Piper, have you no shame?

The bass here reminds me so much of Kool Spice, especially in Primer Beat. The vocals in Beyond the Moon are amazing. Lemon Drop sounds catchy as hell. This is what Pied Piper should have been.

All of the tracks have a distinct similarity (sp?), they all flow pretty cool with each other, even the weak songs fit in (My Foot all over again!)

This is not nearly their best CD, but are you honestly calling this the worse CD ever? No, man.. Just.. no.

Also, Primer Beat for best song

You're retreating from your original position, but it's either "I was wrong about X and Y," "no, you're still wrong and here's why," or you're just trying to cover your ass. Pick a position and stick with it, I'm not going to be insulted if you disagree with me over my points, but it's silly to see you go soft on your position like a second-rate politician when you're criticized. Man up desu.

^You know, some of us actually [i]like[/i] Wake Up! [i]a lot[/i].

But I see where I'm being an asshole here. I'm listening to them again and maybe I just over-reacted. Maybe I need to be more easy-going when I listen.

I keep on wanting to hear what I think of as "pillows at there best". Of course I'll be dissapointed with some preview clips... how stupid of me.

[quote="Raid"]All of the tracks have a distinct similarity (sp?), even the weak songs fit in [/quote]

lol