[koumori]

I finally listened to TROUBLE last weekend... as a tl;dr, I feel the album is sub-par musically but her lyrics are on point, as always. I love the themes the album has and some of the imagery she creates, but the songs themselves fall a bit flat for the most part.

We Are The QUEENS
I was never really a fan of this song. I think it's repetitive, the lyrics are weak, and although it has some power to the chorus it just loses itself for me by half-way through. It just sounds commercial, which I didn't mind as much before when it was just used for a commercial, but I don't feel it really fit the album. It's good for karaoke though?

æternal
I particularly like the lyrics of this one, and it's a soothing listen. It's not particularly memorable though and I feel she's had a lot of songs like this over the years. There's no real hook or something about it to make it stand out from the other medium ballad tracks.

WORDS
It's not a horrible track, but musically feels repetitive after æternal. It was nice to listen to when it was a standalone release but I didn't think it was worth a place on a mini. It's not memorable to me.

W
This stands out at least, I think the "wow wow wow" hook is catchy and I really like the intro. It gets a bit messy and feels "empty" later in the song - probably goes on a minute too long or so, with no real oomph to the ending - but it's a good enough track. It's the most experimental/exciting track on the entire mini. The lyric direction reminds me a lot of Sexy little things...

The way I am
Forgettable. Beautiful lyrics but I don't even remember what the song sounds like, and it was the last one I listened to before reading this post. That's pretty sad.


I'm happy some people are enjoying the release and I hope it does well in Japan, with the different marketing campaign and given it is Ayu's 20th anniversary release - it's just not for me.