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I am apparently in the minority of AHS members who don't like Ayu making really dated music lol... so my review will reflect that.
I'm mixed on the album. It's better than LOVE again but the multitude of dreary, schmaltzy ballads really drags it down... a lot. There are, what, 3 upbeat tracks (not counting the afterthought tacked-on Movin' on without you)? And two of those are very similar, with similar buildups, arrangements, and overall style. The other one, WARNING, doesn't remotely fit into this album. It's a shame.
It's also her first album that doesn't really have an identity of its own, which is sad to me...
01 a Bell: This is pretty lovely and reminds me of Kingdom Hearts. It fits the album but really fails as an intro to WARNING.
02 WARNING: SOOO out of place on this album lol. This song is OK, but honestly by the second verse it's pretty much done all it's going to do. It doesn't excite me personally, which is sad because I usually cum for her rock tracks.
03 NO FUTURE: My main gripe with this song is how PAINFULLY dated it is. It'd be fine on LOVEppears or ASFXX or Love songs even since that was Love songs' shtick, but for an Ayumi Hamasaki song in 2015 it's... archaic to say the least. A different arrangement might've fixed that, but I don't mind the arrangement itself, and the verse is kind of a big part of the problem too. Anyway, I like the soaring chorus and the buildup to the chorus and how it releases, but I REALLY dislike how the song cycles three full times. It's just too long. But I'm in the minority here who also doesn't think longer = better lol. IN SHORT, one of the better songs on the album, but I really hate that it's on this album and that she's still releasing songs that sound like this at this stage in music lmao.
04 Anything for You: It's better than the preview made it out to be! Very schmaltzy but the key change at the end helps it along a bit. Way too long. I think she sounds really emotionally vacant though... idk, I don't like the vocal delivery here at all.
05 Last minute: This song has grown on me since the CDL performance and PV, but the mixing is still so goddamn TRAGIC. For that reason, this song will never be a "good Ayu song" imo. The CDL performance with edited vocals is great though lmao. The song could've benefited so much from getting a new, COMPETENT mix, so that you can actually hear the main vocal track in the chorus, and taking out those lame "YEAHS" and whatever other vocalizations that ruin the mood of the lyrics.
06 Zutto...: Again, the CDL performance is better than the CD version. The mix is so much better at CDL and her vocals were so serene sighs. I don't mind this song much now, but I wouldn't notice if it just ceased to exist.
07 Out of control: I usually love these Last Links/call-esque tracks, and this one is fine, but it doesn't grab me so much. idk, maybe I'm just oversaturated with this type of track? She's had so many by now.
08 Story: I don't get the love for this one at all. It's just meaning of Love lol.
09 The GIFT: idk, this is so forgettable I have nothing to say about it anymore.
10 The Show Must Go On: HOLY SHIT is this annoying and gives me a headache... which is really sad because there's only THREE TRACKS THAT AREN'T BALLADS on this album as is. The buildup to the first chorus is identical to snowy kiss; the grating, screeching nature of the chorus is too similar to snowy kiss. If you didn't know, snowy kiss is as far as I'm concerned the absolute worst song she's EVER made, so you can pretty much guess my opinion on this track.
11 Walk: Not worth even acknowledging her.
12 Movin' on without you: I don't know what to really say about this, since it was obviously tacked on as a last-second afterthought, maybe because they saw people bitching about the nonstop onslaught of ballads on this album? lmao. Anyway, I actually weirdly like Ayu dabbling in EDM, so Colours was a fun album for me. This song is more in that vein, and I think it's decent although I don't know if I'll ever go out of my way to listen to it.
tl;dr: My main gripes are the dreary ballads and how dated everything (especially the upbeat songs) are. There isn't a single song I'd say I love or can fully praise... I think it's about time she ditched TK compositions and Yuta Nakano arrangements and found someone fresh to work with. I'm sure there are plenty of people who align with her sound that would die to write for her lol.
It's nice that AHS is happy with this album, but I really don't think my taste aligns with AHS's taste at all. This album is just a retread of 1999-2002 and Love songs for me. It's so dated and a bit bland. The sounds she used for RAINBOW, (miss)understood, NEXT LEVEL, etc. were much more interesting.
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