Review | Impish Crow “Pump it!!”

Impish Crow‘s 2nd CD catches everyone by surprise with its funky summer vibe.

DIG-ROCK branches out from the drama CD series MintLip. This is a mixed media project that incorporates music with drama CDs. To get to know more about this project please refer to THIS article.

Impish Crow is an indie rock band fronted by TSUGUMI (CV: Yuma Uchida) with guitarist TOKI (CV: Takuya Eguchi), bassist MITSURU (CV: Wataru Hatano), and drummer HIBARI (CV: Shinnosuke Tachibana).

Title: DIG-ROCK Impish Crow Vol.2 
Label: TEAM Entertainment Inc. 
Release date: 23/10/2019
Genre: Indie Rock / Powerpop

Tracklist:

01 いよいよデビュー！ [DRAMA]
02 ご機嫌な滑り出し [DRAMA]
03 思ったようにはいかなくて [DRAMA]
04 もどかしい夜 [DRAMA]
05 しょうがないって言いたくない [DRAMA]
06 一歩ずつ、前へ [DRAMA]
07 Pump it!! 
08 おれたちの歩く道 [DRAMA]

Track analysis:

7 – Pump it!!

Impish Crow brings the groove to Pump it!!. The song focus on a deep bass, groovy, and even slightly danceable sound in which drums and slap bass are put in the spotlight.

At the same time, guitars bring fast, funky riffs into the mix, creating a summery soundscape for this track.

This is quite the change for Impish Crow, which started with a clearly simpler and more textbook indie-rock sound, tackling this type of song that could be easily found among “mainstream” pop-rock bands.

As mentioned before, although Impish Crow is categorized as an indie-rock band by the project creators, the fact is that their sound is consistently sounding closer to powerpop than it is to the latter – which isn’t a bad thing because the instrumentals are still entertaining and the vocal performances consistent.

With so much groove going on in this track, it is expected of the vocals to match it and elevate the song.

From the very first note, it is noticeable how groovy Yuma Uchida‘s performance is. His vibrato plays an important role in adding another layer of playfulness to this song.

All in all, Pump it!! currently stands as Impish Crow‘s best song to date. Its funky vibes, the bass line goodness, and the groovy performance culminating in this feel-good funk-rock/powerpop tune.

Pump it!! is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.

DIG-ROCK Impish Crow Vol.2

Drama CD (Yuma Uchida, Takuya Eguchi, Wataru Hatano, et al.)