I also think that some of their best songs are here, SCANDAL is at their peak. It's just that the fun part of listening to an album and enjoying how each song complement each other is missing here.

Btw, it doesn't seem like it's coming to Google Play Music, which sucks cause it's the easiest way for me to buy it :/

Tuba wrote:Btw, it doesn't seem like it's coming to Google Play Music, which sucks cause it's the easiest way for me to buy it :/

Are you sure? Have you tried enter album name into the search? It is available for me. But I noticed some confusion. In the created profile of our favorite band SCANDAL, available only Fuzzy single. The others Masterpiece / Mabataki, Saishuheiki, Kimi and album Kiss from the darkness are in another Scandal list with a blue weird logo. It's some kind of mistake. 

Meph1766 wrote:Are you sure? Have you tried enter album name into the search? It is available for me.

Availability could depend on one's region, but here's the link to it in case anyone wants to check if it's available for them:

https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bn6zvufzlnv736klkzdqrrhjnmi

That link works! But apparently it's not available in my region (Brazil), there's no buy button and the songs appear as unavailable :/




Nothing from "her" is available, only older stuff :/

Likewise for Australia. I'd hoped we were past this sort of nonsense by now.

Meph1766 wrote:Isn't that an advantage? If album are similar to the best of collection, it means that all songs are very good. If you like songs, why you must think that the album is not so good, because no theme. A lot of work has been done on each song to show how much more Scandal can still show us. What we never heard before.

And it seemed to me that strong difference in the sound of the songs doesn't makes album weaker, because of this, album doesn't have a common theme. I don't care. I think It makes it even stronger, more interesting and better than the previous ones. At least I wouldn't like to hear Honey version 2.0.

I think the songs on Kiss from the darkness are not good enough to consider that this a best-of album. The only really good song is probably "Masterpiece".
I find it problematic that the album sounds more like a compilation of ideas that the members wanted to try out. Of course I like variety, my favorite SCANDAL album "Hello World" has a good balance between a theme and alternation.

I hope next time they will release singles with B-Sides again.

Tuba wrote:That link works! But apparently it's not available in my region (Brazil), there's no buy button and the songs appear as unavailable :/




Nothing from "her" is available, only older stuff :/

I have the same problem from Chile  .hmmm.

Now I understand. It depends on the region. I see all new "her" releases available, but I don’t see old ones. You have the opposite, guys.

I guess it's beacuse the only non-japanese distributor is JPU Records that works only in Europe. Hope they will find distributors in the rest of the world as well.

I can suggest to use VPN services if you want to purchase KFTD or any other regional restricted content. For example, ProtonVPN is a reliable sevice that has free servers in Japan and Netherlands. Or use japanese version of Spotify, it has a lot of great jp only content.

Here' my quick reaction after listening to the entire album on Spotify:

I like the album, way better than Honey but, not as superior as Yellow. I am writing a review right now. Hoping it gets published before the weekend. I can't wait to receive a copy of KFTD vinyl edition from CD Japan this March!

1. "Tonight" has the 90s anime soundtrack meets New Order feel into it.
2. "Laundry Laundry" has a few country influences. I wonder if either Mami or Haruna played some slide guitar in this song.
3. "NEON TOWN ESCAPE" is my most favorite track in the album! I consider the genre of this song as soul/R&B. For me, it's Haruna's strongest song vocal-wise and it sounds like an indirect nod to the hottest j-pop subgenre in the 80s called City Pop.

MamiNoodles wrote:1. "Tonight" has the 90s anime soundtrack meets New Order feel into it.

Interesting opinion. My first impression of "Tonight" was "Oh, is that a song from Hatsune Miku?" The electric sound and everything reminds me of vocaloid.

Not that this a bad thing.

Keashaa wrote:

MamiNoodles wrote:1. "Tonight" has the 90s anime soundtrack meets New Order feel into it.

Interesting opinion. My first impression of "Tonight" was "Oh, is that a song from Hatsune Miku?" The electric sound and everything reminds me of vocaloid.

Not that this a bad thing.

I'm 42 and never listened to Mika Hatsune or even a single j-pop tune from 2004 until I discovered SCANDAL in 2011. So, my references are based on music that I'm most familiar with.

Meanwhile, I forget to mention that Saishuheiki, Kimi is an enjoyable rock track to listen to. It can pass as a theme of a New Japan Pro Wrestling theme.

Well, to change the subject somewhat back to physical copies, I'm pleased to say that I got my CD & copy of "her" from JPU this morning. Good to see that as well as lyrics being provided in the usual kanji & romaji there was separate English translations at the back of the booklet. The copy of "her" is great. I was worried that it might just be in kanji (as was Vol 1) with the promised English translations provided on separate sheets of paper, but this is expertly & professionally done. Excellent quality - really interesting text - great pictures of the girls -  they really look like sophisticated young ladies. Oh, & the CD plays well & has some great songs. We've got our M&Gs for Sept 6th & are really looking forward to it.

I'm still waiting delivery my CDs, but nevertheless I already listened the bonus track. And this is really cool song. And it's unfortunate that this will not be on the vinyl edition. But anyway, Tsuki still my fav song from the new album.

Finally got two of my three CD's today and I've been waiting to say any more about the album until I did. I've listened to it a few times now, and obviously know all the singles well already. It's hard for me to put into words what I think about it - this is my third try (I deleted the other two).

Scandal's reached the point with me where I may nitpick some things, but overall I'm just happy they're still around. I probably criticize more than I compliment them here, which is totally ass-backwards from how I actually feel. If I sound that way, it's because all the good feelings I have for them and what they do are just assumed. That's always there; they've brought me a lot of happiness over the years. The stuff I nitpick is stuff that's unique to that album, single, or whatever, and that I'm surprised by. So don't take any of my critiques as meaning more than they do, even for me. I still listen to them constantly, as I'm sure I'll do with this album specifically for a while.

So, what I like about this album: it does sound better than Honey, though it's still a little "boomy" in parts. But it's clearer and higher fidelity than Honey was. I also think the songwriting is generally good.

So I like the songwriting and I like how the album sounds. That means I think it's pretty good!

But I can't help but think that a lot of the songs sound similar to other songs they've made in the past. And I'm kind of surprised the album isn't more of a departure for their first post-Sony album, one two years in the making and with a totally new image, different artwork, and with all that they've specifically said about breaking unwritten rules. I feel like the album pretty much sounds like if Yellow and Honey had a love child. That's not totally a bad thing; those are both good albums too! I guess I just expected something a little different.

The only really noticeable change for me is that they really have gone overboard on the vocal manipulation. In fact, I almost feel like a few songs, like "Fuzzy", are only on the album because they *don't* have that - otherwise that's not a great song, but it has a natural sound that the album really needs. I feel like overall the album is a little tiring to listen to because of overproduction, and unfortunately it's all the best songs that are the most overproduced. That makes it harder to enjoy the best songs, while also making the more natural sounding songs feel like they were just cobbled together as filler - it's obvious where the production effort went on this album. It's a weird album in that way. It's inconsistent, but it is so consistently.

So I'm a little ambivalent on this album. It is definitely partly a question of expectations, so maybe I'll get over that. The overproduction is a little harder, though. But I'll keep listening and see if it grows on me more.

It's always interesting to read all the different opinions. I like this album, even though I'm not exactly a huge fan of the production on it...I don't know,it's very 'produced',and a bit sort of 'boomy' or something. Someone else here mentioned the same things.
It's hard to say which are my favourites...probably 'Masterpiece' for it's heavy guitar riffs with a nice melody, same for 'Saishuuheiki, Kimi', Haruna's song,'NEON TOWN ESCAPE', is cool,at least it's actually quite different, Tomomi's song, 'Laundry Laundry', has her cute voice plus it's got a nice melody [I think she must like Reggae,there's often a bit of that influence in her more recent songs,not that she's actually written many for a few years], 'Tsuki' is a pretty nice ballad, the other songs are all not bad.
I suppose this will probably be an unpopular opinion but to be honest I think they've actually been doing themselves a LITTLE BIT of a disservice by relying too much on Mami to write pretty much all the music the last couple of years. The best thing about this album for me is the fact that both Haruna and Tomomi wrote one song each. But I personally think that it wouldn't hurt to actually go with a few collaborations with pro songwriters,like they used to [at least there are a few here that are arranged by some other guys...that's a start] The songs were just 'better' up to and including Yellow...in my OPINION!
One thing that I don't get is what's happened to Haruna's voice...I know people are talking about 'Autotune' a lot...whatever,there's nothing wrong with a few vocal 'effects' as we used to call them But it's the actual tone of her voice that's changed too,at least on the recordings...[I don't remember her voice sounding like that when I saw them a few times in Japan in 2017-18, in all the old songs she sounded pretty much the same as before as far as I can remember].
She even talked about this in interviews,that she's the only vocalist whose voice actually gets higher as she gets older But her voice has also somehow lost a bit of it's individuality I think...which might well have something to do with those vocal effects I suppose.

ELFLOCK wrote:
I suppose this will probably be an unpopular opinion but to be honest I think they've actually been doing themselves a LITTLE BIT of a disservice by relying too much on Mami to write pretty much all the music the last couple of years.... But I personally think that it wouldn't hurt to actually go with a few collaborations with pro songwriters,like they used to

I know what you're saying, and while I don't know if I want them to go back to outside songwriters, this album is the first time when I've felt like they're kind of specifically repeating themselves. Some songs just really remind me of other songs they already have - for example "Kinenbi" actually sounds like "Sunday Drive"; "Tsuki" reminds me of "Chiisana Hono"; even "You Go Girl!" kinda reminds me of "Sisters". I don't think I've felt like that before about them; they always have a similar sound from one album to another, but the songs themselves have felt different.

I like the idea of them writing all their own music, but maybe the other members should step in a little more. Mami's maybe been shouldering too much of the load. All the members have written really good songs before, and I do like "NEON TOWN ESCAPE" on this album too.

One thing that I don't get is what's happened to Haruna's voice...
She even talked about this in interviews,that she's the only vocalist whose voice actually gets higher as she gets older But her voice has also somehow lost a bit of it's individuality I think...which might well have something to do with those vocal effects I suppose.

I think that's a different thing. I think it's more likely the result of her fixing her vocal issues and singing "properly" now. The way she sang in the past is what was responsible for her losing her voice in the Baby Action era; she's now singing higher and softer. She's not belting it out and she's not singing in the low registers as much. (Though I like hearing her back down there in the verses of "NEON TOWN ESCAPE").

I think the volume she's singing at is the most responsible for the change you're hearing. I used to sing in a band and took lessons myself and it is really physically difficult to sing as loudly as she used to (though it's pretty common for certain types of singers, but she's not really one of them). She sings much more delicately now. I doubt she's singing much more loudly than conversational level most of the time; you could probably talk at about the same volume.

The Auto-Tune is something else; that just makes her sound like a robot.

spacecadet wrote:

ELFLOCK wrote:
I suppose this will probably be an unpopular opinion but to be honest I think they've actually been doing themselves a LITTLE BIT of a disservice by relying too much on Mami to write pretty much all the music the last couple of years.... But I personally think that it wouldn't hurt to actually go with a few collaborations with pro songwriters,like they used to

I know what you're saying, and while I don't know if I want them to go back to outside songwriters, this album is the first time when I've felt like they're kind of specifically repeating themselves. Some songs just really remind me of other songs they already have - for example "Kinenbi" actually sounds like "Sunday Drive"; "Tsuki" reminds me of "Chiisana Hono"; even "You Go Girl!" kinda reminds me of "Sisters". I don't think I've felt like that before about them; they always have a similar sound from one album to another, but the songs themselves have felt different.

I like the idea of them writing all their own music, but maybe the other members should step in a little more. Mami's maybe been shouldering too much of the load. All the members have written really good songs before, and I do like "NEON TOWN ESCAPE" on this album too.

One thing that I don't get is what's happened to Haruna's voice...
She even talked about this in interviews,that she's the only vocalist whose voice actually gets higher as she gets older But her voice has also somehow lost a bit of it's individuality I think...which might well have something to do with those vocal effects I suppose.

I think that's a different thing. I think it's more likely the result of her fixing her vocal issues and singing "properly" now. The way she sang in the past is what was responsible for her losing her voice in the Baby Action era; she's now singing higher and softer. She's not belting it out and she's not singing in the low registers as much. (Though I like hearing her back down there in the verses of "NEON TOWN ESCAPE").

I think the volume she's singing at is the most responsible for the change you're hearing. I used to sing in a band and took lessons myself and it is really physically difficult to sing as loudly as she used to (though it's pretty common for certain types of singers, but she's not really one of them). She sings much more delicately now. I doubt she's singing much more loudly than conversational level most of the time; you could probably talk at about the same volume.

The Auto-Tune is something else; that just makes her sound like a robot.

Yes I get what you're saying,and I'm sure you're right about that with the singing etc. She did actually more or less completely 'lose' her voice at one point a few years back eh?
I did read a couple of interviews where she mentioned that her new voice was mainly to do with her vocal coach telling her to go easy a bit etc,as you say. I personally just much prefer her voice up till about the Yellow album though,in those days it was very distinctive.
On the subject of outside songwriters,I totally get why they want to write their own material,but again,for me personally I just think their songs the last couple of years have lacked a LITTLE BIT of something...not sure what exactly!

I have been holding off on writing a review, mostly because I have had absolutely no time to write, but even now as I write this I am a bit distracted thinking of the songs as I am playing a Jeff Beck record in the background (damn, he is incredible).  I have listened to the new album about four times, and much of what I wanted to say has already been expressed to some degree, especially by Spacecadet.

To me, much of this album sounds like leftovers from past albums.  Too many songs sound like others they previously recorded (spot on @spacecadet on "Tsuki" and "Kinenbi"-- I was going to say the same), with a few new songs written and thrown in.  All the rockers sound like leftovers from Honey, which too me is not that bad.  I am okay with ballads, but the sequencing on this one does not work for me.  It lacks the sonic ebb and flows that were so well demonstrated on Hello World and Honey (my two favorite albums).

Someone said "Tonight" sounds like "Brand New Wave."  Exactly, and like "Brand New Wave" I think it is a terrible lead track.  In fact BNW is one of my least favorite songs in their catalog.  "AMDKJ" should have kicked off this album.  

"Mabataki" sounds better within the album, but only when I listen to it at work, which basically means "as background music."  It's too girly for me and doesn't play well in the car or when I work out.  People have commented Mami shouldn't write so much, but I think Rina should stick to lyrics.  I don't understand them anyway so I really don't care what the songs are about.

I liked the three songs I hadn't heard previously: "Neon Town Escape, "Ceramic Blue" and "Kinenbi," with NTE probably my favorite of the three.  At the moment I can't recall how any of the melodies go.  This could be the fault of Mr. Beck playing in my ear, or the songs just aren't as catchy and memorable as many of their other album tracks.  I will say that none of them sound like filler to me, but again the overall album does sound like Encore part II, but not as solid.

"Tuski" sounds like it should have been on the Baby Action album, and like that album they close with a slow tune.  I know a lot of folks in this forum love "One Piece" but again it's another tune at the bottom of my overall ranking Scandal tunes list.  "Tsuki" reminds me to much of "One Piece" and I'm not that crazy about it.

Like most everyone else I hate the auto-tune, but "Saishuuheiki Kimi" is an enjoyable song in spite of it.  

I also hate electronic drums (I'm looking at you "Mabataki")  

I don't have a problem with Haruna's voice, but yes, I do miss that old smokey quality she once had.  BTW, I am 49 and my singing voice is higher now than when I was 20, and I have never had a singing lesson to cause that.  So, I believe her when she says her voice naturally got higher as she got older.

I liked hearing Tomomi sing lead again, and we got two tunes from her this time.  I wish there was a Mami lead, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.  Keith Richards rarely sang on a Stones record, but when he did it was special and those were all great songs (especially when performed live).  I don't want the greatness of Mami to be watered down for the sake of fan service.

I realize most of what I wrote is negative, but my overall feeling on the album is more good than bad since there are far more songs I like than dislike.  Some of these tunes will be much better live, and I can see a few of them sticking around and popping in and out of their sets in the future.  But like KISS' last two albums, which were surprisingly very good, the really good songs still have to compete with that awesome catalog of theirs to get into the set and stay.  Think about it: if you were Scandal and had a choice between playing "Take Me Out" or "Masterpiece" which are you going to choose?  I like them both, but that's part of the problem with making a set list; one of them can't make it.  I am really looking forward to seeing them in September to see which of these new tunes will be the contenders.

I discovered Scandal right before they released Hello World, so use that as my basis for the next comment.  I like this one better than Yellow, and the only reason it's remotely a disappointment for me is because Honey was so darn good.  "Masterpiece" was a killer song to release first.  Unfortunately they paired it off with "Mabataki."  From that standpoint I didn't know what to expect going into my first full listen.  With every song I liked, they previewed another tune that made me think the album was going to be uneven.  So unfortunately I went into this expecting it wouldn't be as good as Honey.  Sometimes that a good thing.  After all I went into Honey knowing the two lead singles didn't sound anything like Yellow, and I was excited and proved right.  Then again it could be bad.  Yellow was not Hello World, especially since that one followed Standard which is a terrific album from the second song to the end.

The only bummer I felt while listening to this one the first couple times was that my physical copy was going to be vinyl.  If this was any band other than Scandal, I probably wouldn't make that investment.  When it comes to my vinyl collection I am not a completest.  There are certain albums I want duplicated from my CD or digital collection.  This one thus far does not standout like Hello World did, which I love having on vinyl.  

I am hoping that over time the aspects of KFTD that I am not currently thrilled about will age better with me.  Yellow did, as well as some of their earlier songs I felt were a little too poppy and "girly"  Sorry, I don't mean to be offensive-- I am a metalhead after all.  "Pinheel Surfer" comes to mind as an example.  Hated it when I first heard it, but I love it now.

Anyway, I rank this album as a B/B-.

Don Dio wrote:Someone said "Tonight" sounds like "Brand New Wave."  Exactly, and like "Brand New Wave" I think it is a terrible lead track. 

I watched about 1/3 of the video for "Tonight" in advance because I couldn't resist. And I concentrated mostly on watching Haruna, as is my norm, because she's awesome to watch in basically any situation, regardless of the music. So I didn't really know the song until I got the album. When I did listen to it the first time, I said to myself, out loud in the car, "well, that was a weird opening track." And I 100% agree with it being like "Brand New Wave". It's totally unrepresentative of either Scandal as a whole or even the album specifically. I don't know why they like to lead with songs like this. At best, this should be a track near the end of the album, after all the good stuff's established, and they're in the "hey! we're trying some different stuff you might not like, but it's the end of the album so whatever!" part of the track list.

The really disappointing thing with "Tonight", though, is that I feel like it could be a pretty good song. It is just massively, massively overproduced, overly sped up, overly manipulated, and generally mangled. There is a good song in there somewhere, but it's been totally destroyed by the production. And I feel like putting this as the lead track may have negatively influenced my feeling toward the album as a whole. Which is the opposite of what a lead track is supposed to do, and is totally unfortunate if that's caused me to give short shrift to the rest of it.

I am hoping that over time the aspects of KFTD that I am not currently thrilled about will age better with me.  Yellow did, as well as some of their earlier songs I felt were a little too poppy and "girly"  Sorry, I don't mean to be offensive-- I am a metalhead after all.  "Pinheel Surfer" comes to mind as an example.  Hated it when I first heard it, but I love it now.

I still skip that song every time it comes on. I mean hey, they're a band with like 120 total songs - they're not all gonna be great.

But I will say that despite "Brand New Wave", I consider Standard to be a classic, and probably their best album. I just start at track 2 every time. Maybe I'll end up doing the same with KFTD - basically forgetting that "Tonight" exists, and it'll be a better album for it, at least for me.

Don Dio wrote:People have commented Mami shouldn't write so much, but I think Rina should stick to lyrics.  I don't understand them anyway so I really don't care what the songs are about.

Ha ha. 10/10 for honesty!

Oh, and Pinheel Surfer is BOSS.

I've been away for work for the past coupla weeks so have only given KFTD a cursory listen. Hope to properly acquaint myself with it in the coming days. No review forthcoming.

Don Dio wrote:I don't understand them anyway so I really don't care what the songs are about.

But thanks to this site we have the translation of songs. Are you not interested what they are singing about?  

Meph1766 wrote:

Don Dio wrote:I don't understand them anyway so I really don't care what the songs are about.

But thanks to this site we have the translation of songs. Are you not interested what they are singing about?  

Their melodies, harmonies and orchestrations are so interesting to me that I form my own impression of what the emotion of the songs could be about.  

I think we can all agree that most of their early tunes sound very happy.  This gives me a positive feeling when I listen to them.  Whenever I looked up the English translations for many of these songs I felt there was a conflict in the emotion I was feeling from the music with what the words were expressing.  They took away from the song more than add to it.  Also, because the songs were written by very young women, or girls on the very early songs, a lot of the lyrics are quite dopey to me as an adult male (that's old enough to be their father).  I am happy enough with just the presentation of the music and their skill as musicians, which I think has been improving with each passing year.


@spacecadet
Piling on "Tonight" and "Tsuki" here...  I agree that "Tonight" has the makings of a good song but the production ruins that from happening.  I hope they strip this one down when playing live; but as songs like "Love Me Do" proved when done live, they will still rely on what was done in the studio.

I also agree on putting the song towards the end or further into the album after we have experienced the other songs and are willing to accept something different.  As I mentioned HELLO WORLD is my favorite album, but "Place Of Life" is a weird tune compared to all the ones before it.  Yet it's a good closer for that album because of the sequencing of all the other tunes that led into it.

That being said, "Tsuki" doesn't work as a closer for me because the sequencing doesn't work and there are already a few slower pop tracks sprinkled throughout.  

I played the album again at work this morning and it does play well coming out of my computer.  Tracks 2-8 are pretty good as with #10, but I would change up the order a bit.  I would totally leave "Mabataki" off this album like Scandal thankfully did with "I Want You" on HONEY.

@Don Dio
I'm a little sad to hear that about Tsuki. It’s strange that you just compared it as slower pop tracks. I think it's totally different. For me, it works perfectly. Haruna’s completely different vocal flow than other songs and pretty cool sound effects combined with the guitar create an sad feeling. Even at first, when I had not read the text, I completely caught the mood and promise of this song. In my opinion, this is a great end to the album (unless of course we are considering a bonus track)

I'm pretty sure one of the problems Scandal discusses at length is how to move forward without alienating their fans. You can read lots of comments on YouTube along the lines of "I liked the old Scandal songs better". The band is clearly aware of these people, but at the same time they don't want to end up trapped in a sort of musical snow globe, stuck in place with songs falling like snow, each unique but at the same time all the same. On the other hand is the competition, the acts that place higher in the Top 40. You'd have to be out of your mind not to acknowledge trends in music. Add to that the desire to make music they personally like, which may or may not overlap with the other styles. I think this album is a reflection of the problem of being pulled in those different directions. They'd almost be better off putting out two albums simultaneously, one titled "For You" and one titled "For Us".
My personal strategy for enjoying this album is to pick a single song and play it to death, then move on to the next one.