Album: EgoIst

Hey, this is probably my first post here even though I’ve been lurking around for a pretty long time already. So first up, I’m here to give my comments on an album called EgoIst. This album is the 4th album released by imis!n, it’s a vocal and UTAU album with 7 tracks released in 2013 for Minna no UTAU 2013. For the purpose of this review, I will touch upon 4 tracks in the album, namely tracks 1, 3, 4 and 7. So let’s get down to the songs!

Track 1 – Tribute to Pringlez 〜缶にも愛を2013〜 by roni

Now I just got one thing to say about this track, and that it is really wacky. It’s a minute long instrumental track which uses really weird sounds in it. This is because throughout the song, you will hear someone crunching down on Pringles. Now if you find that you might get irritated by someone eating noisily on something, this just might irk you. I know sometimes I felt the urge to stop the sound. But it’s really unique and is just one interesting way of starting this album.

Track 3 – 百鬼夜行 feat.日本鬼子 by 西久志

Hyakkiyakō (Scandalous Scene?): now this track is my favourite song in this album. Not much vocals, everything after the first portion is instrumental. The reason why I love this track is that there is a huge change in the feel of the music. It starts out like a sad ballad, with Hinomoto Oniko singing and slow music accompanied with a wonderfully somber piano playing along. But then it starts to build up with the piano and bass, before it explodes into hardcore electronic music. With the growls and funky beat, it’s really catchy and it really appealed to me. It even ends with the slow pace of the start as well.

Track 4 – 明後日の君に贈る唄 feat.zero by roni

Asatte no Kimi ni Okuru Uta: Now this song came in close behind track 3 as the best song in the album. zero’s voice is so calm and sweet, and her voice just fits so nicely in this song. This slow song gave me the feeling I was sitting around a campfire, with her singing this song along with the acoustic guitar, flute and the bongo. This song is filled with such peacefulness, it does feel like it can lift your spirits up, and you can look forward to the next day, or for what is to come, like a conclusion has arrived for what you have just completed.

Track 7 – 涙と三ヶ条(Teto Arranged) by nog

Lastly, I would like to touch upon the last track in the album. Now the reason why I picked this song was because the song really had a lot of potential, but some of the tuning just felt lacking and off, putting it off somewhat. The song is really sweet, another slow paced song in the album, but some of the high notes just didn’t sit well with me, it didn’t feel normal, not ideal. Nevertheless, the song is filled with emotions, and it’s a good way to end off the album.

Conclusion

Overall, I am pretty impressed, there honestly aren’t that many albums around that feature UTAU and vocals fully. I only came across this by chance and it interested me as something that was more unique, even in this category.

Score:

I give it a 3.5, though some might not agree with this (maybe relatively high even though the songs did disappoint me)

It’s quite refreshing to hear these songs, and the use of UTAU always piques my interest. Though refinement is needed, I believe songs made after this can only become better.

Here’s imis!n’s Official Site, Soundcloud, YouTube

You can also check out the Twitter pages of roni and nog and 西久志/Nishikushi

There used to be some albums sold on Alice Books, but they are now sold out!

That’s it for now! Cheers~