夢中夢 - 夢中夢 [2006]

Much more classical inspired beginning than rock and metal. It has a very charming darkness to many of the songs tempered with beautiful strings and piano. "不浄幸福讃歌" really has that metal attitude and grinding distortion to the beginning. This is where it becomes clear that the production, while suited very well for the light, beautiful, and dark arrangements of previous songs, needs to be polished for the metal stuff. That said, the production still gives it a lovely and spacious feel. Part of the spaciousness of this album also comes from the sections of music that are very minimalist and simplistic. The album is a bit long, but certainly brilliant in its execution and I never really got bored despite the minimalistic last few songs of the album. It only feels slightly less polished than il y a and it certainly doesn't have the same energy, but then, they seem to have gone for a more sedate energy on purpose. Extremely effective album.

Rating: 8.75

http://sound.jp/mutyumu/news/underconstruction.html

All ratings are out of 10. Rating may not be a whole number.

夢中夢 - イリヤ - il y a - [2008]

Beautiful string intro track. I was kind of hoping for more of a new age sound based on the intro, but so far the rock is wonderfully done. It is very much reminding me of Touhou's music thanks largely to the piano parts. It's almost noise at times. I'm really warming up to the opera-style vocals. Damn, "火焔鳥" is full of surprises... even a slow-speed blast. I can't even imagine what the rest of the album will sound like with so much being thrown into the first song. "眼は神" has some heavier parts injected into the beautiful ramblings of the piano sections. There's a lot more metal influence than I was expecting. "ドクサの海の悪棲" is so wonderfully brutal and dark that I feel all else in my life is melting into the blackness. They've pulled off a wonderful trick with the drums; when a more sedate and beautiful section is playing, the drum production is nice and fits in without feeling overly powerful, but when a metal-inspired section comes up the drums suddenly become extremely punchy and even over-compressed at times. This album is fantastic all the way through. There's just barely enough variation between songs to keep each song feeling mostly fresh. Though, most of that variation seems to come towards the end of the album. The songwriting is lovely. The beauty is moving, and the heavier parts really remind me of some underground post black metal. The only thing that could be considered a problem with the album is the production of the guitars during the heavier parts. They don't have a distinct sound, are buried in the mix, and are mostly inspired by the noise genre. Despite that, the guitars have a brutal and uncompromising charm to them. On balance, the metal parts are a bit stock for the genre that they are borrowed from, but I don't mind much because of how they are neatly fit into the songs.

Rating: 9

http://sound.jp/mutyumu/news/underconstruction.html

All ratings are out of 10. Rating may not be a whole number.