Ack Phhht!

Scandal’s new single has been out for two weeks a month six weeks now (I’ve been working on this post for a while!), and though I got my hands on a copy right after release, I haven’t been very on the ball about getting a post up about it (meh, this blog is suffering from a malaise).  Anyway, here’s the cover art:

And just when I was happy to see them back off from the nose-bleeding school girl fetish look, too.  Anyway, it came out October 14th, and although a video for “BEAUTeen!!” came out a bit before that, the A-side is actually a different song, “Yumemiru Tsubasa”.  The single also includes the band’s cover of “DAYDREAM”, originally off a Judy and Mary tribute album.

To be honest, I think this may be the weakest thing Scandal has released to date — nothing on it is bad, but nothing is all that exciting, either.  “Yumemiru Tsubasa” sounds like an anime theme song, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s also rather unmemorable, which is.  Honestly, I’m not sure what’s wrong with this song — there’s some nice soaring guitars, and the bridge chugs along nicely … I guess the chorus just doesn’t really take off, so the song leaves no impression after it’s over.  (Hell, I listened to the song for probably the 300th time two minutes ago, and I’ve already forgotten what the chorus sounds like).  “BEAUTeen!!”, as I wrote before, is in the same boat — pleasant enough, but it doesn’t leave a mark.  And as for “DAYDREAM” … well, it’s probably the best song here, if only because it’s a little faster and has some energy and spunk to it, but it isn’t a Scandal original, and it was originally released a while back anyway.

Am I just burnt out on Scandal?  I was starting to think so, after following them pretty obsessively for the past year and a half.  But then I gave a listen to their first full-length, Best★Scandal, which came out a week after “Yumemiru Tsubasa”, and it reminded me of how much more fun this band could be.  There are three versions — the regular CD version, a CD plus DVD, and a limited edition CD plus book.  Here are the covers:

The album features all seven of the band’s singles (one, “Kagerou”, in a new version), along with six new tracks.  Most of the new stuff is a bit mediocre, but the rush of listening to the older tracks back-to-back (they’re mostly sequenced on the first half of the CD) is a nice reminder of why I was enjoying their early run of singles so much.  And there’s at least one great new song, “Ring! Ring! Ring!”, whose verses are, of all things, a sort of melding of boogie piano and doo-wop, but somehow it works long enough to get you to the super-sugary chorus.  None of the other new songs are quite as good, but a few at least show promise — the glam stomp of “Anata ga Mawaru”, the mid-tempo “Kii to Yoru to Namida”.  The worst song is easily the headache-enducing “Moroshi Night”, whose vamping keyboard part feels like an icepick to my brain.  But all-in-all, the album is a pretty good listen, and is almost as good an introduction to the band as their first EP, Yah! Yah! Yah! Hello Scandal.

Sadly, still the band does not release a recording of “Playboy”.  C’mon, guys, I’ve been waiting for you to record the damn song for forever ….