A beautiful soundscape takes over in “Kagayakeru ashita e”, song that proved to be a technical challenge for SOARA’s members.
Title: ALIVE「Neo X Lied」Series vol.4 Label: Tsukipro/Movic Release date: 25/03/2022 Genre: Pop-Rock/Orchestral pop
Tracklist:
1 - ドラマ「Where do you want to go ?」 2 - ドラマ「Have a nice trip !」 3 - 輝ける明日へ 4 - 輝ける明日へ -off vocal-
Track analysis:
3 – 輝ける明日へ
“Kagayakeru ashita e” brings a picturesque soundscape to the spotlight much in the style of Growth, taking Ren, Nozomu, and Mamoru through Middle Eastern-inspired melodies.
The song kicks off with an intense sitar melody on top of a simple yet rich percussion section that includes live drums, bongos, and timpani. The sound you get is grandiose, the soundscape filled with infinite adventure and discovery.
The verses are slow-paced, with acoustic guitars, vibes, and a shaker creating a comfortable sound leading you into the big, breathy chorus awaiting you.
A nice, and quite possibly underappreciated, detail in this song is the strings that serve as a smooth transition from verses to the chorus, adding the right amount of tension to the track, never stealing the spotlight away from the performance.
In the outro, you’ll find a beautiful choir backing the trio and it is really something to make goosebumps all over you. How high the choir goes is only eclipsed by how insanely technical Junta Terashima is in his performance, playing around his vocal range both towards bass and tenor.
As a whole, the performance in “Kagayakeru ashita e” is rather solid.
There are some hiccups with Chiharu Sawashiro and Taishi Murata due to how limited their vocal ranges are, as well as them not being used to harmonizing and powering through high-pitched sections – some performed in Latin – that is so characteristical of Growth’s sound (the driving force in this song).
Junta Terashima is in his element for this performance, leading this performance with a lot of confidence, taking Sawashiro and Murata along, and making sure they blended fairly well into the song.
His versatility as a singer made it possible for him to be the baritone anchor for this performance, giving both a spotlight to Murata and Sawashiro but also taking over and shining on his own. When it came to ad-libs, high notes, and head voice, only Terashima was consistently delivering those in high quality.
For what it is – a fairly difficult song to perform – the SOARA duo (Sawashiro and Murata) did a good job however, given the technicality and the beauty of the soundscape created in “Kagayakeru ashita e” deserved a top-tier performance like the ones Growth has been consistently delivering.
ALIVE「Neo X Lied」Series vol.4 is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.
