Review | Soshi and Ryota “Neo X Lied Series vol.3”

SOARA’s Soshi and Growth’s Ryota deliver a unique performance in the unpredictable rock tune “Black & White”.

Title: ALIVE「Neo X Lied」Series vol.3
Label: Tsukipro/Movic 
Release date: 25/02/2022
Genre: Rock

Tracklist:

1 - ドラマ「絶妙な距離感」 
2 - ドラマ「大雑把Cookie & 繊細Tea」 
3 - ドラマ「悪くない」 
4 - Black & White 
5 - Black & White -off vocal-

Track analysis:

4 – Black & White

“Black & White” kicks off with a massively groovy bassline, adding a lot of bounce to this tune. The verses ride on a comfortable mid-tempo in which drums lead the way comfortably while the guitar adds a playful edge to it.

The pre-chorus is clean, arriving as a surprise, especially after the verses were all about those unstoppable dirty guitar riffs and polyphonic synths melodies.

The chorus is surprisingly fast-paced, putting those awesome and fast-paced piano runs to good use while strings join in alongside the synths, giving a bit of depth to an instrumental that is primarily bass-centric.

Following up the chorus is an unexpected intermission, leaving the bassline. Synths and overdriven guitars create a unique stage ready for the 2^nd verse.

In a way, this song vaguely gives off SolidS’ vibes from its urgency even down to how unpredictable some parts are within it.

The bridge tones things down on the instrumental side, at least for the very first half of it. Then, things get jazzier with a playful piano melody adding color to the instrumental.

And this time around, for the second pre-chorus, strings take over, adding a layer of beauty to this song. Slowly, you start noticing that this song has more depth than it appeared to have. Still, on a first listen, it’s quite possible that you’ll be all over the groovy bassline or even the delicate strings + piano combo.

In this instrumental, you find, however, subdued, elements that represent both groups represented by Soshi (SOARA) and Ryota (Growth).

The excitement and speed in the rock instrumental capture SOARA’s trademark sound whereas those beautiful, delicate piano and strings combo nod at Growth’s sound – although a bit simpler in comparison to their usual sound.

On the vocal end, Makoto Furukawa and Daiki Yamashita prove to be a duo without any flaws.

Both cover a wide vocal range and had the potential to put it to good use however their performance was more conventional than I anticipated.

For this song, the focus was on making it so that Furukawa and Yamashita were comfortable in their mid-tones with a couple of trips up their range in the chorus and with a beautiful crescendo later on into the song.

All in all, a blend of SOARA and Growth gave way to a distinct groovy song with plenty of unpredictable parts and two rock-solid performances that will make you wish we had gotten a bit more from them.

ALIVE「Neo X Lied」Series vol.3 is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.

Alive “Neo X Lied” vol.3 Soshi & Ryota

Soshi Kagurazaka (Makoto Furukawa), Ryota Sakuraba (Daiki Yamashita)