Shouta Aoi continues to perfect his formula and branch out in ways that we could have never imagined in “Harmony”.
Title: Harmony Label: King Records Release date: 02/10/2019 Genre: Pop-Rock
Tracklist:
1 - Harmony 2 - SPOTLIGHT 3 - Fake of Fake
Track by track analysis:
1 – Harmony
A delicate piano melody and Aoi’s gentle vocals create the perfect intro for this song. The song quickly opens and introduces more dynamics, picking up its pacing through the bass-drum-driven drums, upbeat piano melodies, and simple guitar riffs.
The song counts with simple verses that put the spotlight on Aoi’s vocals whereas the chorus has him sharing the spotlight with the addictive instrumental. The piano solo in the intro and the addition of strings add nice touches to this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfLuiKQRjYE&feature=youtu.be
On the vocal end, Aoi delivers a comfortable performance with some instances of falsetto, subtle high notes, and a lot of enthusiasm to match the pop-rock instrumental.
2 – SPOTLIGHT
The gears shift for this tune. SPOTLIGHT introduces fans to a hybrid of rock, funk, and disco.
Funky guitar riffs, playful brass, alluring rhodes piano melodies, a groovy bass line, and a solid bass-driven beat complete this addictive and unique instrumental.
This might be the first time that fans can listen to Aoi performing a song of this genre and with the unique approach we just witnessed.
The technique used by Aoi in the chorus is quite unlike anything he has shown us so far. It taps into disco-type vocals, filled with sustained notes, crescendos, and a whole of vibrato that, ultimately, added a lot of flair to this performance. Outstanding performance.
3 – Fake of Fake
An urgent piano melody is our introduction to the song however, this song has an interesting dark edge that comes through the overdriven guitar riffs that serve as transition points between the intro, verses, and outro.
The verses are delicate and slow-paced, making great use of string melodies, a danceable beat, and, of course, Aoi‘s sweet vocals that add a dual delicate and powerful touch to this song.
Solid performance in what is quite an interesting song.
Final considerations
Harmony is an interesting addition to Shouta Aoi‘s repertoire. All songs have a lot of rock influences in the instrumentals contrary to what we could find in the previous release, TONE. Guitars and live drums are, more than ever, present.
Even in SPOTLIGHT, this release’s highlight and a complete novelty in his repertoire in terms of sonority and vocal technique, there were rock and funk influences.
The fact that this single has strayed away from pure electro-pop territory has made his music sound more mature and enabled the focus to shift from the instrumentals to his vocals only.
Harmony is an easy-listening, soft rock tune that has pop lyrics and a gentle performance on the vocal end.
Fake of Fake is a song that is quite close to Aoi’s peppy pop, however, the execution and progression ended up being quite different than expected, introducing an interesting duality of truth and lies materialized in the contrast between brighter and darker bits in the composition.
The vocals ended up being quite normal and without adding any novelty to this release or his repertoire.
In the end, this release is well worth checking out, especially after the incredibly fresh performance that we can. find in SPOTLIGHT.
Disco music has certainly never been Aoi’s focus and his vocal technique, with emphasis on the chorus, is something we have never heard before.
This single, as a whole, is well worth checking out, if not for the novelty of some hits and bits in his performance, for the pleasure of listening to Aoi’s gentle vocals and stellar technique.
Harmony is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.
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