Girugamesh – Gravitation (review)

girugamesh

With a transversal repertoire making stops in almost every genre, leaving the visual-kei elements behind and changing their sound and looks to a more main-stream ones, Girugamesh now make their second release this year after their album called Live Beast. 

Gravitation is their third mini-album with a gap of seven years since the last one so we can expect something new.

Here are more details about the mini-album:

girugamesh_gravitation_cover

Mini-album: Gravitation
Label: Tower records / Avex Tracks
Release date: 24/9/14
Genre: Alternative-rock

Tracklist:

1 Go Ahead
2 Gravitation
3 Not Found
4 Reflection
5 Vortex

Track by track analysis:

1- Go Ahead

Kicking off this mini-album with Go Ahead, a song that starts up in a simple way with only the drums and  Satoshi‘s vocal work,  then little by little the rest of the instrumental comes together until the chorus, a small reminder of  Girugamesh‘s  sound when they started off with a bit of screamo but still adding a choir in the background that makes this song give off a gothic-rock vibe to the track, plus we have female vocals here and there which weren’t a bad addition. The guitars are simple and the drums are as double-bassed as possible but totally screaming Girugamesh, still we have a little of synthetic drums featured in this track to add that extra spice to this piece. Despite the whole instrumental they deliver us a guitar solo that is completely calm and melodic in comparison with the rest of the songs. 5/5

2- Gravitation

The title track that has let a lot of people amped up. Starting off with powerful drums and guitar, this track makes way to Satoshi‘s vocals adding a crazy amount of speed in this track along the way. If you thought the pre-chorus was very nice then chorus is even better with the speedy drums and the guitar that is in “solo mode” throughout the whole track, surprise of the surprises if one listens to this track closely they will notice that we still have a little of those synths that were so predominant in their last single INCOMPLETE. This song has a lot of highs, especially in the instrumental – the guitar is at its best – but the instrumental piece altogether is even better with an acoustic guitar and piano after the guitar solo adding the finishing touches that come off just as amazing and unexpected as you could ever think. 5/5

 

3- Not Found

The guitars, synths and drums make the perfect entrance to this track, laying the red carpet for Satoshi to shine with his vocal performance. This track is a little heavier than the previous one but still has a lot of synths as well as a lot of screamo in the chorus but the instrumental almost as a standard is powerful with the double-bassed drums, awesome guitars and the bass. The outro is just a little different from the rest of the song with the piano and synthetic drums making it extremely beautiful and despite it sounding unusual, it does its job in the end. 4.5/5

4- Reflection

Starting off with a powerful and fast instrumental we now have Reflection, a track that features a little bit of rap in the vocals but that quickly turns into the usual vocal work delivered by Satoshi. This track has a lot of changes of tempo, them being more noticeable while giving more attention to the drums. As usual the guitars are in “solo mode” with the bass reverberating throughout the song. The chorus is rapped and screamed and because of that for some it might sound a little difficult to listen to but in the context of the track it isn’t that hard to listen to it. 4/5

5-Vortex

Closing this mini-album we have Vortex that starts with all its power and speed but simply fails do deliver something meaningful. The instrumental can be a little wearing to listen to, but the guitars and bass are amazingly well blended, making this song a little less overwhelming. The triangle and the pipe organ in the outro can make some think that this part of the track turned to give off a kind of eerie “vampy” instrumental. This song is full of surprises for good and for worse, but the outro was exceptionally unexpected, plus the drums are probably the best part of the whole track because soon after this beautiful outro we have once again the same pattern of instrumental that was a little exaggerated in the beginning. 3.5/5

Final rating:4 stars

Gravitation creates mixed feelings because there are songs like Go AheadGravitation or Not Found that are clearly good and shine in its own right in this mini-album, sharing some elements from their previous single INCOMPLETE – like the synths and the synthetic drums – which were a plus to the tracks, but then we have songs like Vortex that have an instrumental that somehow fails in some parts, but still in the same track we have an amazing outro that makes one think if they are listening to the same song that minutes ago was a little bit more difficult to listen to, so if we compare this mini-album to the previous single releases it’s fair to say that this one has improved its overall quality, still far away from the quality of their masterpiece album “Music“.

 “Gravitation” is available for purchase for all overseas fans on CDJAPAN.

Gravitation / girugamesh
girugamesh

 

 

Vanessa Silva
Vanessa Silvahttps://www.handthatfeedshq.com
The Hand That Feeds HQ founder, content creator, and music reviewer. Basically, the only person managing everything at The Hand That Feeds HQ. Stumbling upon Mamoru Miyano's "Orpheus" in 2011 was the start of this journey. If music is thought-provoking or deep, you may find her writing almost essays (not limited to, but it happens a lot with Soma Saito's music). She's the producer and host of the male seiyuu-centric podcast, SEIYUU LOUNGE (see Spotify link in this profile).

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