My Kind of Perfect

girl next door – Agaruneku!

01/13/2012 at 11:45 PM | Posted in girl next door | Leave a comment
Tags: agaruneku, album, girl next door, review

~Album~

girl next door – Agaruneku!

1. Dada Para!!

2. No.1

3. Summer Time

4. Boogie-Woogie Night

5. Kimi no Moto e

6. Kimi no Tomodachi

7. ROCK YOUR BODY EXTENDED

8. my own path

9. Zutto

10. Kiss Kiss Kiss

11. Yume no Hana

12. Your Story

13. snowflakes

Sorry this is so late, again, wasn’t really looking forward to this review as I was afraid it would be bad… So let’s see if my suspicions are true.

The album starts off with the super hyper “Dada Para!!“. Which in some miracle, my opinion of it has actually gotten better over time, and listening to it now made me realize I actually really like it.

Score – 8

The first new track of the album “No.1″ instantly sounds a little generic and almost like there is way too much going on with it. I honestly wish I could say more about this song but I can’t because it was extremely forgettable.

Score – 5

When I first heard the preview of “Summer Time” I really wasn’t impressed. But now that I’ve heard it in full I can say it’s better than I expected it to be. That’s not to say much about the song though, I did find the melody to be kind of pleasing. Something about Chisa’s voice in this though, kind of got on my nerves at some points. There’s a cool electric bridge that I thought was cool and wish it had been longer.

Score – 7.5

So again, going completely against what I thought, I actually kind of like “Boogie-Woogie Night” and I honestly couldn’t tell you why. The lyrics don’t bother me anywhere near as much now as they used to.

Score – 8

“Kimi no Moto e” instantly starts off with a really fast pace, both in vocals and music. I really didn’t like the overall pacing at all, but something about the melody, especially during the chorus got me and I suppose you could say I ended up liking it.

Score – 6

One thing that I can say about “Kimi no Tomodachi” is that Chisa’s vocals are pretty impressive in this song, something about her singing here really just stood out to me. It really ends up showing that there’s something more to gnd than mindless, catchy, generic songs. That being said, there’s not much else going on in this song that I think much of.

Score – 6

I really wanted them to include the normal version of ROCK YOUR BODY on the album, but instead they went with the god awful, 8 minute, “ROCK YOUR BODY EXTENDED” and I suffer because of it. There’s really nothing I can say about it that I haven’t already said.

Score – 4

“my own path” quickly starts off in a bit more rock-ish tone and I was really looking forward to that. But things changed to upbeat synth pretty quickly and I remembered how old I think that’s getting. Once again I reach a track in a girl next door album where I think to myself, “WHY CAN’T THEY RELEASE ANOTHER SONG LIKE JYONETSU NO DAISHO” (aka their best song to date) Years later that song still gets a 10 in my book. But anyway, enough of that…

Score – 6

I had to come back to “Zutto” multiple times, because I literally did not know what to say about it. Not that it was extremely bad or anything (it’s only a little bad) but yeah… It was just kind of boring and forgettable and really nothing interesting about, not to mention that occasional Chisa goes into that register that I find to be kind of annoying.

Score – 4

“Kiss Kiss Kiss” almost gives me what I want out of a girl next door track (read: Jyonetsu no Daisho Pt. II). Deep vocals, serious tone, mid to up tempo, etc. But from what I liked when the song started things get a little out of hand with the synth and the chorus gets a little too fast for my liking, either that or it just didn’t go where I expected, and when things don’t go where you expect them to, (unless they get ZOMG better) it can be really bad. Worse of course than if you hadn’t been expecting anything at all, and that’s what unfortunately happens here. After a bit of thinking, it sounds a bit like ESCAPE an earlier girl next door track.

Score – 6.5

So “Yume no Hana” comes up and I can honestly say that there was really nothing I liked about it, none of the music appealed to me, the lyrics/vocals I didn’t find interesting at all, and the melody was just boring, and everything felt really oddly paced.

Score – 4

Thankfully, from a low we get a bit of a high. “Your Story” is a bit of a high light in a sea of shite. There was something nicely upbeat about it, especially the melody during the chorus. The guitar, the synths, the clapping (snapping[?]) throughout, while not exactly groundbreaking were nice and a good mix.

Score – 7

So the album ends thank god with a song called ”snowflakes”. Of course it’s got that slightly Wintry feel to it thanks to bells and chimes and all that that makes pop songs sound Wintry… Most songs like this tend to be kind of bad and this one is no exception unfortunately. I really don’t have any more to say about the songs on this album at this point. It’s really just best if I end this review here.

Score – 4

Final Note

Other than the occasional decent track, gnd is really turning into one of those groups/artists that I just don’t want to listen to. But I keep giving them chances, I’m clearly a masochist when it comes to them… I’ll probably say this every time but… THEY REALLY NEED TO STEP IT UP.

Overall Rating