I was kind of set up to expect something completely different, so a bit of my judgement is tainted in that regard. This is largely an album of sad-ish ballads, mostly piano-based, in a varying mix of Japanese and English, that are generally well sung and well played, and that would work well in movies, but that are also not exactly the type of stuff I tend to jam more than once. The first couple tracks led me to expect more than this, as both open up in surprising ways after a few minutes, with some saxophone, the instrumentals opening up, more energy and more of a beat, making them somewhat cool tracks. The atmosphere is slow, subdued, sensual, a bit a la Sade (not in sound just in vibe), and the tracks definitely set a mood. This is also true of the more guitar based 3, and 4 goes back to the piano with a very pretty intro but adds sporadic accordion and is really quite pretty. 5 is another pretty guitar ballad. So far so good, and the songs have enough variety between them to be entertaining as a record but also individually. Then 6-9 is just piano ballads, and whilst they are all equally well crafted, they just blur into another. That's just too much sad pianocore in a row for me. It's not awful but it's not my cuppa. Then 10 goes back to jollier piano and almost feels like a saloon/bar kind of song, and I guess it's cute - at least it has the merit of not ending the album on a streak of piano ballads. A well crafted album that I don't really care for, sporadic French sound bites or not. 3.4
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