Whole thing rocked my face and lower extremities

[quote="Cloudy_One"]Whole thing rocked my face and lower extremities [/quote]

Yeah, four listens so far and I'm definitely really enjoying this whole album.

https://www.mediafire.com/?mkm0s7tntru3aor

A more refined review.

Well, I've gotta admit the album took me a bit by surprise, didn't expect that much, ended up liking it a lot, up there with Trial, a lot of improvement since OOPArts and Horn Again

It's pretty good. Whether it's something I'll be listening to with frequency has yet to be seen, but it's better than I expected.

Clean Slate Revolution is nice.

I liked Break A Time Machine! rather well. The song title SUCKS, so I would have bet money on it's sucking a fat one, but the solo was nice and I think it'll sound great live.

Alice is the weakest on the album, probably.

About A Rock N' Roll Band, Happy Birthday and Moon Dust are all fairly solid songs.

Prairie Rider is pretty nifty! Same with Anemone.

If you ignore the terrible Engrish, then Song For You is pretty nice, I think. I really liked the vibe.

Message is listenable, I guess. Ideal Affection is the fairly energetic closer, and is pleasant enough.

Not bad.

Any MP3 rips please?

My hero!

Thanks man!

Thanks!

First impression: good album. I love Moondust (the song), but none of the non-singles has grown on me yet.

It ranked 5th on the Oricon Weekly chart; the highest the pillows have even reached on Oricon. It's a very good album, too.

Wow, you're right! That's pretty awesome.

Okay, so this is the first new pillows album I've heard since Wake Up!

Listened a few nights ago with my girlfriend and nothing made much of an impression on either of us -- a few decent songs, but a lot of interchangeable mush. A lot of the songs felt like they went on for twice as long as they needed to, often going on for two or more minutes past the point where they had run out of musical content. I know the pillows have generally aimed for song lengths close to 4 minutes, but brevity can make the difference between a great song you want to repeat, and a snoozefest that you can't wait to end.

It's holding up better on repeat listens today, in spite of the production homogenizing it pretty badly and making the songs (and the individual parts of them) sound less distinct from each other than they ought to. This definitely contributed to our listener-fatigue and generally negative first impressions, but even after getting to know the songs better, the production is still a noticeable issue that's actively detracting from the music. Wake Up! had similar production problems as I'm hearing here, with bad compression use and other poor mixing decisions keeping the songs from putting forth as much energy as they ought to have, generally flattening things out into mush. I'm feeling the same thing here -- the drums sitting way in the back of the mix in Tokai No Alice, etc.

Is Zin Yoshida still producing the pillows' albums, or did they part ways after the move from King Records to Avex? Someone is really dropping the ball in the mixing department, regardless. Not to say that the songs are otherwise perfect, but my ears really miss the varied and dynamic production of the pillows' mid-90s/early-2000s work.

I came to rather enjoy Wake Up! and have recently even come around to My Foot, so I'm looking forward to delving into the four recent albums I've missed.

I gotta say, reading all the comments before giving a full run through probably over-hyped the experience for me. I was a bit let down. But already it's growing on me...I listed all the way through on my walk to school, and again on my walk back, and the walk back had me liking it more the second time around. Some solid tracks, but nothing really great. I'll give my full opinion tonight when I get home. As usual, the down-tempo ballad (Anemone) won me over (like Song for Hermit, Ownerless Guitar, etc.)

[quote="sl4"] my ears really miss the varied and dynamic production of the pillows' mid-90s/early-2000s work.[/quote]
+1

We should just put this on a friggin T-shirt and be done with it already

Here's my opinions on the track's not from previous singles...

Great:
Clean Slate Revolution-Solid opener which got me pumped for the rest of the album, but after that turned out somewhat flat, I feel it's one of the strongest on the album. Solid chorus.

Anemone-Probably my favorite on the album. A tad long, but I never found myself bored, I enjoyed it through and through, great down-tempo, classic pillows track.

Good:
Moondust-I liked this more when we first saw the PV. It's kinda worn on me now. It's a solid track, it's not bad, but it's just not great...the chorus gives me a Scarecrow vibe, a bit too much so, and it kind of bores me.

Message-This almost made it into the "Great" category, but something doesn't quite push it there for me. I feel like it's the verse melody. Overall a solid song that I wouldn't skip.

OK:
Break A Time Machine-I hate the title, and the song itself is rather bland in my opinion. Especially the chorus. It comes off a bit cheesy. Not terrible, but not a fan.

Praire Rider-The hopping guitar line I feel was played out enough in Rodeo Star Mate. The chorus and solo save it from being bad though.

Song for You-It's alright, but definitely the cheesiest on the album. I feel like it's supposed to be real emotional, but it just didn't connect for me. The whole start of it rubs me the wrong way, but the feel of the song is solid. I just wish lyrically it connected more.

Ideal Affection-This is almost passable, but there is no denying it's a fun song. I feel like I want to learn it, because even though I don't love listening to it, playing it would be fun. The chorus and solo are pretty great.

So this is why I was a tad bummed, the OK beat out the good and the great, but mostly, there weren't enough great. I'm skipping out on like 3 or 4 songs here from past singles, but they don't really save it. Had we never heard those, perhaps. I still really dig Happy Birthday and I do like RocknRoll Band.

Overall score: 6.7/10.....I would have given it a 7, but it loses .3 merely for the terrible song titles.