despairs rayfinal call9.9.2009
¥2000 | ¥2000 | ¥1260
universal A decade ago, Karyu met Tsukasa when their respective mothers, former strippers at a dive called Liver Poo in Tokyo, got together for lunch.
The boys hit it off over a shared love of metal and started daydreaming about making a band.
Hizumi lived near one of them (it's never been made clear which one) and got the gig "out of convenience"; Zero's dad was a patron at Liver Poo and, having money, could afford to pay for the band's rehearsal time and, later, the start-up costs like photo shoots, CD pressing, and flyer printing & distribution.
Thus was Despairs Ray formed.
And now, in 2009, they've toured the US and the EU and reliably sold out one-mans throughout Japan for years and years. They've got three good albums, three more EPs, and a handful of DVDs. And last week, to their list of twelve CD singles, they added a thirteenth:
Final Call.Three tracks, all pretty much sounding exactly like you'd expect a Despairs Ray single and its subsequent b-sides to sound.
'Tis produced by that dude from Abingdon Boys School and I guess you can sorta tell, but ABS and The Ray already had a similar production style, a rocking one with a little growl, but very polished and cooked at the same time, Hizumi & Co. operating one supposes under the suspicion that as fans age they crave smoother chugs, not harsher ones (which is the opposite of the growth I and EVERY SINGLE PERSON I KNOW experienced, going from Poison to Opeth in a ten year period...) But in Tokyo, all the girls who were in high school when these guys debuted are now married and in housewife mode, right? Can't have them 'banging to "Demon of the Fall..."
Too big for group shots -- someone had to stitch individual shots of them together into a group after the fact. :(
So, right, anyway, "Final Call" is the rocker with the zest every Despa single in the last five years has possessed; "Going On" is a little slower/chunkier and exposes more of Toshiyuki's production hand, and also sounds like every other Despa single of the last half-decade, except with "rapping," he says with a cringe; and "Ark in the Storm" evinces an '80s rocker feel in the verse guitars that I enjoy, and a chorus that only earns its keep after you've given it time to expand in your tummy a little, but mostly just lays back and lets your brain do the work of making it fun, or not, as you see fit.
I guess the DVD (on the more expensive sets) has some Euro-tour stuff, which makes it an automatic buy if you attended, or at least used to before the internet ascended to a point where you can be guaranteed to find anything you want in the exact filesize and encoding scheme you desire within five clicks...
For me, tho, this single joins the pile of other D.R. singles that I'll never seek out again.
Gimme some good ol'
Terrors or
Sexual Beast anyday.
rating: :\
