Growth wraps up the CARDS CD series with a “SPADE”, single that is all about its epic sound however messy mixing ended up ruining its chances of becoming the group’s best entry.
Title: ALIVE ｢CARDS｣ Series Volume 4 Growth ｢SPADE｣ Label: Tsukipro/Movic Release date: 24/06/2022 Genre: Orchestral / Acoustic pop
Tracklist:
1 - Knight Quartet 2 - ファルシオン 3 - Knight Quartet -off vocal- 4 - ファルシオン -off vocal-
Track by track analysis:
1 – Knight Quartet
A dramatic piano melody urgently paints the soundscape, leaving the path open for the timpani to bring forth an epic orchestral composition with a touch of drum and bass underneath.
The pace quickens up as the strings, timpani, bright piano and drums go loud and intense for this intro.
Worth mentioning that just as you are getting into the first verse, you will find in the background a subtle crescendo on the legato strings quartet, easing you into a quieter, more introspective part of the song.
“Knight Quartet” has a bassy percussion, a mix of a drum and bass beat and timpani with the cellos and violas giving an extra touch in drama and depth.
As you’re getting closer to the chorus, a high-pitched choir – with tenors and sopranos in there – joins in the harpsichord, giving this track a baroque twist.
The chorus is dramatic, focusing on the mid-tempo drums and high piano melody.
Now, despite how epic this instrumental is – as I’ve just analyzed it isolated from the rest of the song – when the vocals by Growth come into play what happens is shocking.
This mixing is messed up. The vocals are buried for a massive chunk of this song, being noticeable right from the start as the intro timpani and choir puts the main vocals in the backseat.
Things get a bit clearer in the verses as the vocals are only running alongside a bright piano melody and strings. However, as the bassline, drums, and timpani kick in, the vocals almost disappear to the background.
When the time comes for the chorus, both instrumental and vocals are on the same sound levels. There is no depth in the instrumental.
The vocals seem to all be centered instead of panned to the sides (which is surprising as this is quite the amateurish way to set the vocals for group performances), populating the soundscape.
It sounds sloppy and it is really hard to listen to the vocals with clarity (no matter how good your setup to listen to music is).
“Knight Quartet” arrives with an ambitious, epic song but fails completely to impress with a mixing that will make you want to turn this song off almost immediately.
2 – ファルシオン
“Falchion” changes things up a little bit, introducing an acoustic sound with nods to the middle-eastern (Arab) and traditional Western music.
You have a variety of guitars or instruments of the guitar family in here – oud, baroque guitar, and acoustic guitar -, creating a rich, upbeat adventurous sound that ends up being surprisingly addictive.
In the background, drums and ethnic percussion – which I can’t pinpoint from which instrument it is – give a bouncy twist to this instrumental.
The verses are a load of fun, exuding an adventurous but also celebratory vibe with its major key melodies and unstoppable beat.
The chorus is quite simple yet effective, with the vocals being performed in unison, however one that is tasteful and timely in a song that feels more like an improvisation over a fun piece of music.
Strong way to wrap up this single.
Final considerations
Mixed feelings for Growth’s last entry in the CARDS CD series.
After waiting almost half a year for the group to wrap up this series, the expectations were high. Growth would blow everyone away with their epic, lyrical sound and performances. That was something that the group could easily do by looking at their past releases.
What happened is… slightly different.
“Knight Quartet” is one of those songs that had a massive potential to be bloody awesome, quite possibly the best song by Growth to date given how epic, urgent and well-thought was the orchestral instrumental.
However, its mixing is the bane of its existence, a big reason why this song may not click with many of you.
It sounds sloppy even to untrained ears. The vocals are buried for a majority of the time, the instrumental is too loud and surprisingly bass-enhanced which makes it impossible to listen to the vocals.
With Growth being a group with 3 tenors and 1 baritone, it is common sense that an instrumental that focuses too much on bass and happens to be on the same levels as the voice would end up burying those.
The tenors in Growth are gentle for the most part, with only Daiki Yamashita managing to emerge from the instrumental due to a slightly brassy twist to his high notes. Junta Terashima ends up disappearing from this performance, only being perceptible in the bridge. Shunichi Toki and Yoshitaka Yamaya are barely audible throughout due to the mixing in this track.
Focusing on having all vocals at the center with only a 5 to 10% panning was not enough to add any depth or dynamic to this song.
With all this in mind, I’ve decided to experiment a bit with the song to figure out its main issue in the mixing – aside from the equal sound levels for voice and instrumental. Up to the test were: Bass-centric headphones, clean audiophile headphones, and neutral headphones (for recording and monitoring, quite harsh on the vocals).
With clean audiophile headphones, the instrumental buries the vocals almost completely.
Bass-enhancing headphones render this song impossible to listen to as the bass completely buries the vocals.
Well, hello, the issue is right here: too much bass.
Neutral headphones however remove part of the bass in this song (making the warm sound signature fade away) and then… all of a sudden the vocals are slightly more perceptible (still quite muffled).
Still, even if you can get a bit of clarity with neutral headphones, the sound levels completely messed up this song that had everything to be Growth’s best – by instrumental alone.
Worth mentioning that not all fans will have the money or even will be interested in getting high-quality headphones so… the song should be clear as day with regular headphones (which are usually leaning towards bass-centric), something that doesn’t happen.
This song needed only 3 things to be at its best: vocals populating the soundscape not at the center but in a 180 degree; vocals with the sound levels over the instrumental; and slightly less focus on the bass in the instrumental.
It would still be the same song, however, you’d get dynamics, depth, clarity – which this song deeply lacks – and an overall epic track to enjoy.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and given how long fans had to wait for this song to be released, they deserved more, much more from it.
“Falchion” brought Growth’s trademark adventurous, fantasy-style sound to the spotlight with a semi-acoustic track that is extremely addictive. Traditional Middle Eastern and Western instruments blend to create what is the highlight of this CD.
All in all, expectations were really high for this entry, the final chapter in the CARDS CD series. What ended up happening is something you would never expect from John-san – the group’s composer -, arriving as abnormal in Growth’s repertoire.
What could have been an epic entry for Growth with “SPADE” ended up being a footnote in the series, a CD that is all about “what could have been” more than what it ended up being, an absolute mess.
What is the CARDS CD series?
For the CARDS series, card suits – Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds and Spades – are split within each unit series: ALIVE (SOARA, Growth) and SQ (SolidS and QUELL). Each group in a unit series will be in charge of two card suits. The themes explored in each release are closely related to playing cards.
A note that SQ’s groups – SolidS and QUELL – already completed the CARDS series in 2020. ALIVE’s groups – SOARA and Growth – complete the series in June 2022 with Growth’s entry.
Growth consists of Shunichi Toki (as Koki), Junta Terashima (as Mamoru), Daiki Yamashita (as Ryota), and Yoshitaka Yamaya (as Kensuke).
ALIVE ｢CARDS｣ Series Volume 4 Growth ｢SPADE｣ is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.
