Review Summary: The Pillows continue their winning streak, despite some uneven pacing.
Runners High arrived in the middle of a flourishing period of creativity for one of Japan’s best, yet chronically overlooked, rock bands. The album reflects the continued evolution of a band embracing artists like Nirvana and the Pixies – albeit, a few years later than most of the other artists influenced by this style. Even though Runners High has more filler and unmemorable songs than its predecessors, it’s an important point in the band’s career and contains several overlooked gems that deserve more appreciation.
Runners High is undoubtedly the most punk-influenced of all The Pillows’ albums. While earlier tracks hinted at it, Runners High is an unabashed embrace, exemplified on Sad Sad Kiddie and the title track. The crunchy guitar riffs sound great – Yoshiaki Manabe gets some of the best guitar tones of his career on this album – but the songs themselves aren’t nearly as interesting or endearing as the gigantic anthems of Little Busters and Happy Bivouac. Instead, the record is most memorable for its singles (or, in some cases, potential singles.)
The first of these is Instant Music. It’s a great song, but also quite different from the power anthems of Little Busters. Where the preceding album was characterize by an innocent (though sometimes despondent) earnestness, Instant Music is bitter and cynical, a noticeable thematic shift from the band’s preceding music. In fact, Runners High is perhaps the most cynical album The Pillows ever released, which is all the more curious considering that it was released in the midst of the band’s greatest creative streak. Knowing that two indisputably excellent albums would follow Runners High certainly colors one’s perception of this album, but considering the rapid pace with which the band was producing singles and albums in the late 90s, fans might understandably wonder if Yamanaka and his bandmates were on the verge of burning out.
And there are signs of the burnout that would eventually come, years later: songs like Juliet and Wake Up Frenzy are by no means bad, but they feel like filler in comparison to the stronger tracks, and are strange choices considering the excellent B-sides that didn’t make it onto the album. They’re most interesting for the bitter, angry vibe they echo, and it’s clear that the band has lost the innocence that played such a vital role on their preceding two albums. White Ash might be lumped in with these tracks, too, but at least it has some interesting bass playing, courtesy of Tatsuya Kashima (who makes his final appearance with The Pillows on this album.)
Fortunately, a few less-than-spectacular songs don’t derail the album. No Self-Control is a terrific single that feels more consistent with Please Mr. Lostman and Little Busters, and strikes an effective balance between the band’s changing (and competing) identities. Besides that, it draws on chord progressions and melodies that feel a bit different from the norm for this band, and has a memorable chorus that brims with the simple power of a mid-1960s Who single. Midnight Down is less adventurous, but it’s a great song that’s bolstered by how effectively it merges the cynicism of Instant Music with the upbeat rock that’s more typical of this band.
But Runners High is at its best when it’s not trying to sound like a bitter 90s alt-rock album. Paper Triangle is an excellent instrumental track evocative of sunset-soaked drives along Japanese coastal highways, followed by the warmth of Bran-New Lovesong, its drowsy sound dominated by some of Shin’Ichiro Sato’s most enjoyable drumming on the album. Borderline Case borders on irritating at parts, due to the processed vocals, but Kashima’s bassline and Manabe’s fuzz-soaked guitar solo rank among the album’s better moments.
Let’s See If That’s True Or Not is possibly the best song on the album: it’s without a doubt one of The Pillows’ best melancholic songs, with a satisfying build-up supported by terrific melodies and a moody atmosphere. Like Midnight Down, it’s a rare Pillows song that lacks a true guitar solo, with a subtle instrumental break in its place. Resisting the urge to attempt their own Stairway To Heaven is actually the best move for The Pillows, showing that their best moments are just as likely to utilize restraint and self-control as all-out bombast. That willingness to linger (but not wallow) in the sadness produces some of the band’s best music. Though not as immediately appealing as the colossal power-rock anthems that dominate albums like Happy Bivouac, these moments have a lasting quality that add depth to the band’s work and reveal themselves, often quite surprisingly, long after the initial impact has lessened.
Runners High is the weakest of The Pillows’ late 90s releases, but it’s still a damn good album despite the occasional misstep. The record introduces some ideas that The Pillows never fully explore afterward, and its surprisingly bitter character make it an interesting milestone in the band’s career that endures as a quality release. Runners High points at the tension of The Pillows’ place in Japanese music – they’re too alternative to be considered pop akin to commercially successful groups like Bump Of Chicken, B’z, or Mr. Children, but they don’t feel as uncompromisingly alternative as a group like Number Girl or Bloodthirsty Butchers (who were releasing highly-influential records around this same time.) The Pillows have always been caught somewhere in the middle, and Runners High is the sound of a band struggling to orient themselves in the alt-rock landscape they now occupy. Fortunately, they wouldn’t flounder for long – their next album Happy Bivouac reveals a band that’s finally come to terms with itself.
