Wonder Corona! are back with yet another release to add to their solid debut. They bring “Samajera“, single that has raised their quality.
Single: サマジェラ (Summer Jealousy) Label: Rejet Release date: 13/07/2016 Genre: J-Pop
Tracklist:
01 サマジェラ 02 HANABI 03 サマジェラ -off vocal- 04 HANABI -off vocal- 05 ミニドラマ「ピタゴラスアイドルの休日 ～WONDER CORONA！編～」 [MINI DRAMA]
Track by track analysis:
01 サマジェラ
Celebrating Summer “Samajera” (Summer Jealousy) is the new track in town.
The trio tackles what is one of their best tracks to date. Resorting to a mix between synths and electric guitars, the instrumental piece is actually exciting without being overwhelming or annoying. With a powerful chorus and mild, tension-building verses, “Samajera” won us over with its chorus.
The vocal performance on that specific part left us without mouth wide open.
Although all members are active in their respective units we were surprised with Okawa‘s improvements. What improvements?
If you take your time to listen to this song and pay enough attention to his parts, he’s sounding completely different from his usual singing tone, he’s more melodic, less nasal, and lending a bit of roughness to the chorus – things we don’t listen when he’s performing with Lagrange Point.
Adding Okawa‘s brand new, improved vocals to Aoi‘s stellar melodic, groovy vocals and Masuda‘s ever-improving ones and mixing it with the pop-rock, fresh and exciting instrumental, and you get this catchy song.
02 HANABI
Despite the strong dance pop-driven intro, “Hanabi” still has a major presence of guitars, being the acoustic ones in the intro or the electric ones in the chorus, providing more depth to the background.
The mix between synths and acoustic guitars turned out to be surprisingly soothing and with the steady, melodic vocals, it grabbed my attention.
In comparison with “Samajera“, the chorus is a bit milder, putting the synths on the front seat for what is a bright, fun song. As a whole, this track fails to outshine the title track but was still a solid track.
Final considerations
Sounding way better than on their debut, Wonder Corona! delivered us a laidback, fresh single in which we’re presented with top-quality vocal performances and instrumentals to match.
Starting with the exciting “Samajera“, a strong title track, that left us more than impressed with the lines distribution, melodies, and the powerfully exciting chorus, jumping to “HANABI“, a mid-tempo synth-pop track that, with the help of the acoustic guitar, shines a lot, but not enough to overshine the title track, this single has everything to be considered a successful release.
Vocally Aoi, Okawa, and Masuda improved a lot but Okawa is barely recognizable. His singing quirks are nowhere to be found right now, but it doesn’t mean that he’s sounding awful or anything of the sort, on the contrary.
He’s sounding so polished, so melodic, hitting a lower scale, not forcing tones or intonations. From what we’ve heard on this single we can only expect Lagrange Point‘s next release to be mind-blowing vocally.
“Samajera” puts Wonder Corona! right behind the powerhouse Nebulas. Solid release and the best coming from this unit right now.
“Samajera” is available for purchase at CDJAPAN.
[…] Wonder Corona! released two singles, “Viva La Chu” and “Samajera“. […]
[…] they released “Samajera” in July, a single that fell a bit short but was still an entertaining listen. Okawa changed […]
[…] [As previously reviewed] Celebrating Summer “Samajera” (Summer Jealousy) is the new track in town. The trio tackle what is one of their best tracks to date. Resorting to a mix between synths and electric guitars, the instrumental piece is actually exciting without being overwhelming or annoying. With a powerful chorus and mild, tension building verses, “Samajera” won us over with its chorus. The vocal performance on that specific part left us with out mouth wide open. Although all members are active in their respective units we were surprised with Okawa‘s improvements. What improvements? If you take your time to listen to this song and pay enough attention to his parts, he’s sounding completely different from his usual singing tone, he’s more melodic, less nasal and lending a bit of roughness to the chorus – things we don’t listen when he’s performing with Lagrange Point. Adding Okawa‘s brand new, improved vocals to Aoi‘s stellar melodic, groovy vocals and Masuda‘s ever improving ones and mixing it with the pop-rock, fresh and exciting instrumental, and you get this catchy song. 5/5 […]