I feel like the odd one out here... I really like Rescue, Flashback Story, and Polaris Blah Blah Blah. Ready Steady Go! reminded me a lot of that Good Evening, Enjoy! song on the Hayashi Hideo demo tape.

I [i]really [/i]dig the first 48 seconds of Rescue, but that chorus just outright kills it for me. Such a snore. These guys seem to have a real hard time building decent choruses lately.

Listened through the album a couple more times in the car today. I can already tell that Revival, Comic Sonic, Energia and Trial are the only songs I'll definitely come back to in the future. Minority Whisper is a wild card, it feels like it fell way short of its potential but I really love the sound. The rest, meh.

I'm definitely in the crowd that will probably never be happy with modern- slash Avex-era pillows. So much of it is... uninspired. Just kind of there. I'm happy that Trial doesn't have any outright shit (well, except the mind-blowingly boring Polaris, but maybe it has great lyrics or something), it's definitely an improvement on recent efforts, but it's hard to be excited about an album that I like less than half of. Perhaps this is the beginning of an upwards trend but I'm long past having faith in that idea. And that bums me out more than I can say.

Edit: I'm so disappointed in Mochinushi. It's got a great solo, but the rest of the song really feels like a regular length song just playing on repeat a few times.

Edit edit: Thanks for the upload, Scarecrow.

I agree with zorahk on the Avex-issue,
I agree with Mafu on the over-excitedness part
I am most happy for Cloudy

For me it's like the Horn Again album,
After one listen I feel reluctant to go back to it again.
I'd rather listen to something else, something which I already appreciate than [i]trying[/i] to appreciate this album.
That says more about the 'catchiness-factor' of the songs than about the 'Tidus-factor' (as in musically objectivity, about the song structure)
As GR noted out some songs are in minor, if that is the case, that may partly explain why, in contrast to GR, I don't really feel the songs.
Which songs are in minor then?

I want the words to Mochinushi no nai guitar... Again I like all the choices they made, it flies by for me so I don't agree that it is too long for it's own good... I say don't analyze it so much, just let it wash over you. If I could make a colorful analogy... (brace for impact) It sounds like Fool On The Planet in mourning...

As far as catchiness factor, I think there's plenty to go around. Not a lot of cheery, joyful choruses, though. Ready Steady Go is like an overload of it though.

Trial is better than the band's last few albums, but not by much. It has some good songs, but I think the reason it's getting more praise from the start is that it lacks annoying or outright bad stuff that's really crippled the past three or four records. Instead, it's replaced them with pleasant-but-mediocre tracks that are less offensive but don't really push the album into positive territory. The group seems to be taking themselves more seriously again, which is a very good sign.

Revival: Gets things off to a decent start, but it's not a super-memorable song.
Rescue: I actually quite like this one, dig the chorus, I'm surprised nobody else seems to like it.
Comic Sonic: Nice but not strong enough to really impress.
Flashback Story: I sort of want to hate this song but the vocal effect reminds me of 90s-era B-sides and Sawao's vocals almost save the day.
Enerugia: Great track with nice guitar and bass interplay, but feels very repetitive.
Polaris: Boring, unmemorable, but at least not offensive.
Minority Whisper: I was expecting this to be bad, but it's actually quite good.
Mochinushi: Starts off sounding nice, gets boring. As I type this, I can't remember the guitar playing.
Trial: Solid song, solid riff, great chorus.
Ready Steady Go: Blehhh.

And I know I've said this a million times, but Penalty Life - My Foot get way too much flack. They're better-loved now, but probably the reason they got so much hate back in the day is that they were the first albums to have real stinkers in addition to the amazing songs. They don't work as well as albums compared to the group's earlier stuff, but they're a hell of a lot more solid than most of the Avex stuff.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Man, that 7 minute song really didn't need to be 7 minutes. The solo was cool, but the overall impact of the song didn't go with it. And then the "ARGHHHHHHH!" thing Sawao did... well, let's just say it's not very effective.

[img]http://c.static.memegenerator.net/cache/instances/400x/12/13121/13436441.jpg[/img]

While I don't particularly think that Trial's eons better than any other recent efforts, I acknowledge that they try to vary their sound and approach a bit more than they have been. I like it, and there are a few songs that I really like. But that's pretty much the deal with most albums nowadays. We'll see how some songs continue to grow on me. But overall, I doubt it's gonna usurp Wake Up x3 as my favorite album from the past 8-9 years.

Also, Sawao is a ROCK N ROLL BADMAN who drinks Apple Juice, so FUCK YOU.

[quote="Crescent"][b]Wake Up x3 [/b]as my[b] favorite album[/b] from the past 8-9 years.[/quote]

Have you been listening to bands other than the pillows in the last 8-9 years?

>_> Favorite [i]pillows[/i] album [i]among their works released from Penalty Life onwards[/i].

[quote="Crescent"]>_> Favorite [i]pillows[/i] album [i]among their works released from Penalty Life onwards[/i].[/quote]

Okay, thank the good lord. Though I do look down on you for not ranking Good Dreams higher. Seriously, Good Dream, Walkin' on the Spiral, Sono Mirai, and Frontiers make the album worth the #1 spot, despite the fact that the rest of the album is kinda junky. JUST MY OPINION THO

You guys were seriously bumming me out, but I like what Crescent and GR were speaking of.

I can't see Penalty Life, Good Dreams, My Foot and Wake Up! being lofted so high to be considered "much better" than Trial. The way I see it, they are all in the same boat! We've got PML and the Holy Trinity, then Living Field-Smile-TYMT, now the middle of the pack: Penalty Life, Good Dreams, My Foot, Wake Up! and Trial. Pied Piper, Ooparts and possibly Horn Again are the weird cousins... I just don't see enough negatives in Trial to put it in the same tier as them. The early material I feel is harder to classify, I just go case by case.

All five of these albums have songs that make us say:

"It's good but it's missing something!"
"It would be better if it was sung in Japanese"
"It's unique but I'm not a fan"
"This song rocks!"
" _____ ruined that song"
"I always forget this song even exists"

etc. on and on, heck give me some time and I could probably nail down which quotes apply to which songs across the board. Time shapes opinion better than any means of analysis ever could, Give it a few years and I'm willing to bet Trial lands right in the "Pretty Good" pile with the rest of 'em. And there is nothing wrong with that. You think every Rush fan out there can keep track of the ins and outs of that monster of a discography?

I say we look harder at their discography and harder into our own preferences before we rush to judgement on it is all I'm saying.

So now a little more about why I'm digging Mochinushi... you gotta listen to Sawao and hear the music guys, it's the same idea as most of their ballads... It's not about duration or the trudgery of the verses or the extent of which guitar effect is used, or the totally rad solo in the middle; it's about the story he's telling. Perhaps I'm imagining a more interesting story than others may be? As of now I'm interpreting the finish as the kind of frustration where you can't pinpoint how to fix something that is just eating at you, a realization that your sadness may be uncureable. It doesn't end on a positive feeling... those shouted ahhhs at the end sure as shit don't sound like the character in the song gets a happy ending, at least. With a song like this the lyrics are crucial, you absolutely have to factor in that, frankly, you don't know what he's singing about. I acknowledge that I could have it misread as well, that's why I'm interested to dig deeper into this one.

Rescue is nicer after more listens. Polaris isn't very memorable, there's some nice sounding notes and themes but it isn't glued together very well.

After like 10 more listens, I'm ready to call Revival one of my favorite songs on the album, even if it is all nonsense. Dat solo and Sawao yelling about finding footprints.

^ Fuck Yeah lol!

[quote="GoldenRhino"]Okay, thank the good lord. Though I do look down on you for not ranking Good Dreams higher. Seriously, Good Dream, Walkin' on the Spiral, Sono Mirai, and Frontiers make the album worth the #1 spot, despite the fact that [b]the rest of the album is kinda junky[/b]. JUST MY OPINION THO [/quote]

Not to get too off-topic here, but I consider that a rather significant detractor while talking about favorite [i]album[/i]. Wake Up x3 is what I consider my favorite because it's pretty much solid all the way through and highlighted by a few excellent songs (i.e. Scarecrow, Private Kingdom, Century Keepers). While I've never cared for Propose too much, the only real throwaway song is Serious Plan - which actually isn't too bad, also because, let's face it, nowadays that would totally be a horrific Engrish song.

One of Trial's advantages does seem to be that there isn't too much junk. There are a few songs that aren't too strong, but comparing it to say, the junk songs found on ooparts, I do think it's really hard to call the album "weak" in the face of the band's current era.