First enveloping the listener in a sweet acoustic sound, and then playing around with their feelings through a stunning emotional performance, “ONE dream” kicks off the 12 Songs Gift series in the best way we could have imagined.
For those that have been out of the loop: “12 Songs Gift” is a series of solo songs to be released starting this January. A total of 12 singles, one for each member of IDOLiSH7, TRIGGER and Re:vale, are scheduled to be released throughout the year. The solo songs releases coincide with the character’s birthdays.
Title: ONE dream
Label: Lantis
Release date: 25/01/2018
Genre: J-Pop/Ballad
Tracklist:
1 - ONE dream
Track analysis:
1 – ONE dream
The first release part of the 12 Songs Gift series brings to the spotlight IDOLiSH7’s Iori Izumi. From what we could ascertain with this special single, each song will encompass the character’s nature and feelings. What we got with this song was just a bit of kindness and reliability handed through a delicate instrumental.
Crafted around an acoustic sound, “ONE dream” sounds more like a song that could easily belong to MEZZO, more often known for their sweet, simple ballads. IDOLiSH7 are not that big on ballads – although there have been some moments in which the unit has ventured to that territory and aced their performances -, hence the fact that this song ended up being crafted as a ballad and centered around Iori, plus handed to Toshiki Masuda to perform it, might have been a bit surprising but if you ask us, at the same time it was a sound turn of events.
Laidback acoustic guitar riffs blend with simple, snary drums and a bright piano melody, giving this song a sweet taste. One would think that due to the instrumental’s sweetness, the lyrics would have the same feel, but that isn’t the case. The lyrics have an underlining melancholy that plays well with Masuda’s stunning emotional performance. If there’s something that isn’t surprising is that Masuda has improved his singing by heaps and bounds in the past year. His singing is more stable than ever, he trained and developed his vibrato, polished his registry and now puts much more emotion into his singing. These are all facts. He has always had a sweet, soothing singing tone that only needed a little tweaking and polishing in order to have the power to hold his own on a solo song. Now that that tweaking is done, he’s able to deliver an emotional, consistent and relatable performance, impressing us in the process. He fits surprisingly well with a slow paced, acoustic ballad like this one.
We weren’t envisioning that “ONE dream” would kick off the 12 Songs Gift series in such a spectacular and delicate way, but we’re completely sold to this song and performance. A treat for not only Iori’s fans but also those fans of well crafted, simple ballads.
Final rating:
The song is available for purchase on all major online music stores in Japan.
