ZONE - N [2004]

Typical High school Pop Rock song to introduce us to the album. At least the chorus is pretty catchy. "BeaM" is certainly the highlight of the album. I still think that they don't realize what makes their band desirable. It's not good songwriting, because it's mostly average. It isn't serious vocals or slow ballads. IT'S THE CUTENESS. So far, they are averaging about 1 cute song per album, which isn't good enough. I listen to ZONE for the cute, happy, feel-good shit. But ok, if they want me to review it like a serious album, then I will. The songwriting is average. The creativity is... well, there isn't any. It's cliché and copy-cat all the way through. There aren't any high-points to the album at all. It's not all that catchy. It's too long of an album for what they have and there's a shit-ton of repeats. Props for the one song that breaks with the normalcy of the ZONE sound, "prayer". "true blue" is ok, too.

Rating: 4

http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/ZONE/

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

ZONE - O [2002]

The appeal of a pop band like this is the cuteness of the songs. "証" starts things off trying to be all serious, but ends up being derivative and gutless. I expect the shameless copy-cat nature of the underlying music, but there still needs to be an actual reason to listen to this. Unfortunately, "さらりーまん" continues with the boring and predictable seriousness. At least "Sae Zuri" is soothing and calm. Thankfully, "GO!" gives the listener a small taste of the cuteness that we were fucking looking for all this time. "一雫" is acceptable, if nothing more. Overall, it's pretty weak and mostly what one should expect from a pop band. Not all that catchy. Boring. Derivative. Amateur. Though, it isn't flat-out bad.

Rating:

http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/ZONE/

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

ZONE - Z [2002]

The first track could use a bit of pitch correction on the vocals. OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!! "GOOD DAYS" is so fucking happy it's impossible to not smile while listening to it ^__^!! The "kyu kyu kyu"s are cute of course, but the song isn't nearly as strong as "GOOD DAYS". In fact, that's the only really strong song on the album. Even so, everything is just what you'd expect from Pop. Nothing creative, but decent. Honestly, I'll probably only listen to GD more than once... and I'm sick to death of all the different versions of secret base.

Rating: 5

http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/ZONE/

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