Album of the Week Club (UNDER CONSTRUCTION / WILD WEST)

[depth]

Armony - Gracia

Released: April 2024
Genres: Orchestral, Ethnic, Vocal
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The second release by up-and-coming doujin music duo Armony, this EP commemorates the life and sacrifice of Hosokawa Gracia, a Sengoku period Christian martyr. It consists of five original compositions and a full-fledged cover of the Tiktok-famous 'Wellerman' sea shanty, all of which feature complete vocal accompaniments.

Purchase: Lossless DL
Stream: Youtube
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[Moonlight-Moonlight]

gracia amigo

 

[cheesygloypist69]

Okay I listened to the whole Phantasmagoria album and I thought it was pretty neat. If these guys are telling the truth and these demos are from the late 90's to early 2000's then my mind is pretty blown cuz I can't think of anything as dense and layered as this that came out at that time. I'm kind of a normie tho so idk. Arturo mentioned MBV and Machine Girl in his review and I think that's a fair comparison.

Spoiler: here's my song-by-song review

The Into the Green segment of 3 songs really caught me off guard, I was expecting a pretty basic shoegaze thing going into this. I like that Warp Wet Woods expands on the previous song with the addition of a buncha tribal drums, and Float Flora Flow is a pleasant way to conclude a really competent dance break.

I thought Lose You was alright, not that exceptional to me. Maybe I got filtered here idk

Psychosis reminded me of the early Black Dice stuff, it's a pretty ruthless wall of sound. I appreciate the fact that he breaks up the noise with blast beats cuz it sorta lets you take a breather, if you can call it that on a song as intense this.

Loom is basically the kind of song I expected to hear when I started listening, but it's still a solid entry for the album.

No Escape was surprisingly pop-ish, I really enjoyed it. The main riff around the middle of the song fucken rips. Makes me wanna listen to Japanese sluts over emo guitars

In W-Coloured Haze sounded like the color W ^__^ Makes me think of what it would be like to get blended up and put through a TV cable

Freeze Love II is another one that makes me think this album is way ahead of its time, this is crazy. Very sovlful and definitely a neat little step in the direction of conventionality.

Desertman expands on the concept of Freeze Love and gets more anxious and disjointed, idk how to feel about it.

Teleport Queen is very groovy, this was a highlight for me. The blasted out guitar portions remind me of KMFDM, and the rest is really dreamy and sweet

Ok wtf is goin on with Clouds bro LOL. This album is so gemmy

Kai-Koh is a crazy blend of all the other stuff on the album, and it feels like the most refined song on the album, as far production and composition goes

To conclude, I really appreciate that these guys don't lock into one sound or groove for too long. Calling this album "shoegaze" is questionable to me cause there's a lot more to pick apart here than just fuzzy guitars or noise-for-the-sake-of-noise. Overall I thought it was very refreshing and a really compelling take on the genre, if you can even put it into a camp. I give it an 8.1/10, one of my favorite albums we've heard so far

favorite song: No Escape

 

[cheesygloypist69]

Okay I listened to the whole Phantasmagoria album and I thought it was pretty neat. If these guys are telling the truth and these demos are from the late 90's to early 2000's then my mind is pretty blown cuz I can't think of anything as dense and layered as this that came out at that time. I'm kind of a normie tho so idk. Arturo mentioned MBV and Machine Girl in his review and I think that's a fair comparison.

Spoiler: here's my song-by-song review

The Into the Green segment of 3 songs really caught me off guard, I was expecting a pretty basic shoegaze thing going into this. I like that Warp Wet Woods expands on the previous song with the addition of a buncha tribal drums, and Float Flora Flow is a pleasant way to conclude a really competent dance break.

I thought Lose You was alright, not that exceptional to me. Maybe I got filtered here idk

Psychosis reminded me of the early Black Dice stuff, it's a pretty ruthless wall of sound. I appreciate the fact that he breaks up the noise with blast beats cuz it sorta lets you take a breather, if you can call it that on a song as intense this.

Loom is basically the kind of song I expected to hear when I started listening, but it's still a solid entry for the album.

No Escape was surprisingly pop-ish, I really enjoyed it. The main riff around the middle of the song fucken rips. Makes me wanna listen to Japanese sluts over emo guitars

In W-Coloured Haze sounded like the color W ^__^ Makes me think of what it would be like to get blended up and put through a TV cable

Freeze Love II is another one that makes me think this album is way ahead of its time, this is crazy. Very sovlful and definitely a neat little step in the direction of conventionality.

Desertman expands on the concept of Freeze Love and gets more anxious and disjointed, idk how to feel about it.

Teleport Queen is very groovy, this was a highlight for me. The blasted out guitar portions remind me of KMFDM, and the rest is really dreamy and sweet

Ok wtf is goin on with Clouds bro LOL. This album is so gemmy

Kai-Koh is a crazy blend of all the other stuff on the album, and it feels like the most refined song on the album, as far production and composition goes

To conclude, I really appreciate that these guys don't lock into one sound or groove for too long. Calling this album "shoegaze" is questionable to me cause there's a lot more to pick apart here than just fuzzy guitars or noise-for-the-sake-of-noise. Overall I thought it was very refreshing and a really compelling take on the genre, if you can even put it into a camp. I give it an 8.1/10, one of my favorite albums we've heard so far

just realized i left a couple songs out but idgaf they were #cool

 

[MagicHour]

cheesygloypist adding +/- 0.1 points to his ratings to make them 10 times more precise

 

[mochi]

at first it seemed like it would be a bunch of attempts at anime OP/ED music, as if this is only a vehicle or showcase for a soundtrack composer, but once the choral vocals start it becomes a lot more dramatic, "real" and has a more "full" feeling to it. it's still definitely in the anime soundtrack realm, but it reminds me of a mix of older, more acclaimed and "artistic" soundtrack compsers. kenji kawai, masumi ito and geinoh yamashirogumi were the 3 names that specifically came to mind. there's probably a lot of conscious influence from at least 2 of those

there's strange switches between very clean and complex sounding production like on tracks 1 & 3, and very amateur sounding recording like 2 & 4. the songwriting on 2 & 4 also feel more shoehorned and like if someone working at a TV studio was told "hey go write something orchestral real quick"

the sea shanty one was gay

i liked the last track the most but i also think it's stylistically and thematically completely out of place. reminded me of the more mellow moments of indie j-pop groups like passepied and school food punishment

it was decent overall, but it still has this lingering feeling overall like this is just practice, or a showcase like i mentioned before. sort of like purposefully watching an advertisement instead of a tv show

 

[depth]

Interesting critique. I discovered Armony completely blind to this sort of music, so it left a pretty strong impression and I fell in love almost immediately.

the songwriting on 2 & 4 also feel more shoehorned and like if someone working at a TV studio was told "hey go write something orchestral real quick"

2 and 4 are probably the most repetitive sounding on the release, so I can see why you'd think this. That being said, 4 narrowly beats out 1 to be my favorite as the motif resonates with me personally and I'm a fan of the interlude. My senn px100s eat up the dynamic effects as well

but it still has this lingering feeling overall like this is just practice

Good catch. This one is considerably more experimental than their debut, which just features orchestral 'epic' songs (and higher peaks in songwriting imo)

 

[mochi]

you should listen to akino arai's sora no niwa and sora no mori. one's a studio album and one's a very cohesive compilation of her soundtrack works with yoko kanno that you probably wouldn't notice isn't a studio album without already knowing

it still has an orchestral pop thing to it but it's more minimal than armony, and obviously since it's from the 90s doesn't have the modern electronic stuff like the occasional trap-ish drums. but even though it's more minimal, it has a lot more of a "deep" sound, as if you can somehow feel more things happening in the music than you can hear. or whatever

you might like the first few zabadak albums too, but they're more folk-y and new age.

 

[MagicHour]

I liked it.

 

[MagicHour]

12. Armony - Gracia ◀ NOW PLAYING

Genre: Orchestral, Ethnic, Vocal​

Country:

Reviews: mochi | MagicHour​

11. The Sleepwalk - Phantasmagoria ll

Genre: Shoegaze, Neo-psychedelia, Glitch Pop​

Country:

Reviews: Arturo | depth​

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