KENN‘s “Dance in the Light” has been one of the most anticipated single releases for this 3rd quarter of 2015. Sadly the single fails to deliver something interesting and really relevant to correspond to all the hype surronding it.
Single: Dance in the Light Label: Marine Entertainment Release date: 31/08/15 Genre: J-Pop
Tracklist:
1 - Dance in the Light 2 - Dance in the Light (movie edit) 3 - Dance in the Light (Instrumental)
Overview analysis:
Dance in the Light is a jazzy tune following the previous singles KENN released for the game series “Meiji Tokyo Renka“. Working with a different crew from those glorious times – this time not under his label 5pb and, surprisingly, without the helping hand of music arranger/producer MIKOTO.
Marine Entertainment, known for not being that big when it comes to music, took over this single. With new people working beside / with him the sound has changed dramatically. The drums are now boring and over repetitive, and there are no awe moments in this track besides the ocasional high notes delivered by KENN. Both vocally and instrumentally the song is lacking. The meiji era influences were certain to bound this track to the 20th century jazz and fox trot genres but even that was done incredibly mildly in this track, also there’s no build up in the tension of the track and the bridge doesn’t add anything new to it.
Dance in the Light is not fit to make KENN show, in any way, his vocal skills, instead it shows a slowed-down, uninterested, common vocal performance.
A disappointment coming from one of the best singers in the seiyuu business.
Final rating: 
“Dance in the Light” is available for purchase on CDJAPAN for all overseas fans.
Wow, I think this has to be one of the very few reviews where I disagree with your opinions! (and I don’t mean that in a bad way – opinions are great!) Admittedly KENN is my absolute favourite seiyuu so I am extremely biased, but I loved this song and I’ve always loved all of Meikoi’s music from the game soundtracks to the character songs. I thought the instrumental was interesting (I don’t listen to many jazzy songs so this is quite different for me and I loved the saxophone throughout) and KENN’s performance was great, especially on those high notes. Only disappointment is that this ‘single’ is essentially just one song, and I wish he’d release a single with more songs, or even an album! I kind of doubt that’ll happen any time soon, but it’s nice to hope!
It was bound to happen someday right? hahaha I just thought that the rest of his meikoi songs were incredibly powerful in comparison: “Eidolon”, 東亰浪漫譚 and 紅ノ夜ノ唄 really caught the essence of the meiji era’s jazz. “Dance in the Light” was a clear statement that KENN didn’t want to make something that sounded exactly like the previous tracks. With that the instrumental piece was too simplistic – the sax was amazing but the drums were making it hard to concentrate on the song. KENN’s high notes are as amazing as even but I didn’t think that his vocal performance was enough to make this an impressive song.
Sadly KENN doesn’t that much interest anymore into making music – he’s busy with Marginal#4 and has started to have more anime work these days. It would be awesome to see him release a full length album (not a best of like the last time).