MoritaSaki in the pool - Love is Over!

Surprisingly enough, despite the sheer number of shoegaze and dream-pop bands coming out of Japan these past few years (not that it's a bad thing, most of these bands make pretty sick stuff), this effort from the Kyoto quartet somehow piqued my interest more than a lot of its contemporaries, especially starting from the second track there, Mirror's Edge. By far my personal favorite on the album, what a BANGER. Washes of choruse-d overdubbe-d overdriven-d guitars and a very simple, yet very catchy chord progression. Love that little bend thingy at the end of each phrase, just lovely.
The album keeps on giving with IKAROS, which instantly gets even more propulsive and anthemic than the previous track. Think Breather or New Years.
The vocals here are definitely one of the band's strong suites. Riku and Natsumi are almost constantly harmonizing, and while their singing is pretty subdued and doesn't try to do anything crazy, it fits the mood perfectly.
Ok, but it does unfortunately dip in uniqueness during the second half of the album. SugarCrash and Enrique, despite their catchy hooks and noggin boppin rhythms, never seem to catch the same sweet spark that Mirror's Edge and IKAROS did. The rest of the songs are unfortunately pretty uneventful too, while still enjoyable, if you're a sucker for maximalist shoegaze.
I will definitely follow this band closely, the highs on that album are like, VERY high, and the lows aren't really that low at all.
Can't wait to jump in da pool again, hell yeah.

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