[quote="the pillows"]*sick riff* be wild... *sick riff* Be wild!... *sick riff* BE WILD!!![/quote]

All my s to that.

Last night on Sawao's "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK" program, he commented that Coooming Sooon will be performed live with a hand mic. Should be a fun tour.

I've given the album a listen, and I'm jazzed about it. As far as recent releases go, I don't think it's gonna nudge Stroll and Roll or Trial off the top spots for me, but it definitely beats Moondust and Horn Again. I'll hold off on ranking those against each other for now until the new-ness factor wears off on Nook.

Like others, I'm disappointed that we're back to the Engrish songs, but hey, it's the pillows, I'm honestly surprised Stroll and Roll dodged that bullet completely, haha. Despite that gripe, I like what they were going for with Envy, and I feel like they pulled it off well. Be Your King is a good song, and works very well as the second song as far album flow goes, coming in with that riff right after Envy gets done boxing your ears.

Hang a vulture has a mean potency, and I dig it, especially those verses. Reminiscent of Debris, but a heavier take on it. Perfect Idea really grabs me with that chorus. I feel like I might catch myself going for this one often. Cming sn really surprised me, and has a very different feel to it than the other songs on the album, or even any of their other songs in general. It's very playful, and the intro/verses really make it sound like an album closer, but with that chorus it's just way too catchy overall. Props to them for pure grooveability!

She looks like isn't my favorite, but it's not too bad. Pulse is a nice one, and I liked the build and the come-down at the end. Nothing too special, though. Manabe is really into that rapid-strumming on a lot of these songs, it feels, like, haha. Zhelaniya feels a little filler-y to me, like new-born baby does, but I still like the quick-worded choruses.

Be Wild is rad, especially in the middle. I also like the distinct switch in the feel of the song once the chorus kicks in compared to the verse and riff. Where do I go? is very very Come Down-esque, and it definitely feels like a final track. Not much to say about it, haha.

All in all, not bad at all! And I'm not sure I ever said it, but hallelujah, they didn't completely half-ass the album cover this time!

[quote="ShwahnStuff"]Cming sn[/quote]

haha, unexpected.

Agreed on the album art, this one has really awesome digs going all around. Mafu pointed out that they even managed to avoid using IMPACT for the font (even though it's a fairly similar style). Really not sure why they've spent so many years letting the covers just be mildly altered stock photos...maybe it'll be new shots moving forward (weren't Be Your King and Cuckoo digital singles both non-stock as well?).

wellllll cuckoo digital was just a band photo, and cuckoo cd was a stock photo

FOTP was also "just a band photo," haha. Still better than/more interesting than stock images.

I would take band photos over the stock images every day of the week and twice on sunday!

The back image of stroll (tricycles) would be a better album cover than the skydiving stock

[quote="thomasjameskalogianis"]The back image of stroll (tricycles) would be a better album cover than the skydiving stock [/quote]
YES! Why didn't THEY think of that??

Also, fucking finally:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/MgnM8Eg.jpg[/img]

EDIT: the book is not Pillows related; it's the Ging Nang Boyz cover art photobook

uh oh, an illicit digital copy of [i]Nook[/i] just went up. i was hoping the wait would be longer for those darn pirates, just cuz i was curious about how long it'd take for a rip to go up without any links on IM.

anyway, three days in and i'm still warming up to the album. have a feeling like the songs on this album are pretty subpar in comparison to [i]Stroll and Roll[/i], but then, i felt the same way about [i]Stroll and Roll[/i] when it first came out, so only time will tell. that said, standout tracks for me so far are: Envy, Ousama ni Nare, BE WILD and Where do I go? That last one esp. is insanely direct; kicks Locomotion's ass, imo.

It was bond to happen eventually, but I'm glad that no illegal downloads originated from this forum this time.

After having the album now for almost three weeks, I am still listening to it a lot but especially to the tracks Envy, Be your king, and Perfect Idea.

I think with the albums, they'll always go up before too long. Singles and DVDs are less likely to leak until one of us more hardcore fans decides to upload it, though, I would think.

That said, we don't want it to be a "condemn piracy like means" culture around here - we just want to bring back the concept of "maybe the English fan forum should respect the band enough to not be the place hosting rips/links." I myself may just go back to the concept of closer-knit P2P type sharing as my focus for music rather than huge shared trackers, but everyone should just do their own thing on that stuff.

I'm one of those types who basically just front-to-backs an album any time I throw it on, so I've just been listening to the whole thing a lot still. I'm probably going to give Zhelanie, Pulse, Be Your King, Coooming Sooon, and Be Wild spots on some playlists and give them extra jams, though. [size=50]Goddamnit that's like half the album, huh? I dig this one that much though, at the end of the day. I think Stroll was a great hint at what they were capable of throwing at us but this is the most pillowsy thing to my ears since friggin' King Records and them parted ways.[/size]

Edit: btw, all lyrics are transcribed into romaji, and just three more to translate for y'all.

Disregard what I just said, finished pulse as well. Y'all go two more songs untranslated.

Mein Gott! This is my best first impression of a pillows album in a long time. Reading the interview Mare translated (ありがとう）, it sounds like Sawao following his preferences resulted in a better album.

More pillowsy is a really good description.

But also... more innovative. More creative freedom. I'm thinking I might end up ranking this one above Trial. Holy shit... it really is like King Records pillows in a way. I couldn't have imagined what you guys were talking about until I heard it.

Two moments made me laugh, the very end of "new-born", and [Sawao and Shin?] belting out, "BE WILD!"

@dimsim Did they send you a Buster-kun ziplock bag as a bonus?

[quote="rockman240"]But also... more innovative. More creative freedom. I'm thinking I might end up ranking this one above Trial. Holy shit... it really is like King Records pillows in a way. I couldn't have imagined what you guys were talking about until I heard it.[/quote]
[quote="Marekenshin"]Yamanaka: At first I thought there wasn't any reason, but now I'm thinking maybe there's an explanation. We were the most obsessed with alternative rock back around 1998-2000. In 2000, we were in charge of the music for Gainax's "FLCL." And now after 16 years it was decided that they'd make a sequel to FLCL, and the pillows would be in charge of the soundtrack once again. As a result, when that topic came up on tour, we played the main song from FLCL, Ride on Shooting Star, as an encore. Since [the sequel] will be broadcast in America sometime in late 2017 or early 2018, I thought I must have just been feeling from that point "two more years, huh." But now I look back and think that somewhere in my head, while enjoying the tour and writing songs, some part of me was thinking "we'll be making songs for FLCL again in another two years." So that's why I wrote a ton of alternative songs and really liked them. I felt like doing those songs for my solo work or with another band would have been really unnatural. I had a bunch of alternative rock songs I liked and felt like there isn't any more need to hide that or control where things were headed.[/quote]

So...maybe FLCL was responsible for the "innovation" and "creative freedom" this time around. Thanks for the translation, Mare!

[quote="rockman240"]@dimsim Did they send you a Buster-kun ziplock bag as a bonus? [/quote]
The ziplock was an exclusive bonus with Tower Records pre-orders. It's a little small, but it looks like it's supposed to house the CD?

There's also a sticker that comes with the CD+DVD editions of the album. It's going straight on my Rickenbacker (not a 4001, but I picked the midnight blue colour as a tribute to [i]FLCL[/i]), which has entirely too many stickers on it already.

I felt really validated from reading that interview, because I've actually been telling people for a bit now that if Sawao just said forget it to all the external pressures and just wrote for his own tastes like he did back around Living Field and such, it'd be am amazingly good album.