By Claire Zhang,
It seems to have become a routine for Never Young Beach to release an album in the summer. For this year’s beach entertainment BGM, again they have something new to offer. As the band’s third album as well as their first major label debut album, A Good Time fortunately avoids any desperate attempt to sound different from previous works as is often the case in those failed transitions from the low-budget indie labels to major music management companies. While I am glad that Never Young Beach seem unbothered by the common struggle with turning more popular at the same time as dealing with self doubt, I have to admit that I was expecting a little more than what this album has delivered.
My first impression after the first listen was, “I definitely still love their guitar and the vibe is great without doubt, but they gotta do something to get their songwriting skills back”. I hardly heard any catchy chorus like those which they threw around in ‘fam fam’. It’s the kind of music that you may put the whole record on loop for at a party and everyone would enjoy, but no one remembers the songs afterwards. Every song sounds all right. No one stands out.
The opening song, 夏のドキドキ (natsu no dokidoki), was released last year and thus carries on the festive style from the band’s previous album. The straight-forward lyrics, “no matter after 100 years or 1000 years, the excite heartbeat for summer will never end”, together with the light-hearted melodies has made the song a great intro for the album and a standard summer hit. “Nankasa” and 気持ちいい風が吹いたんです (kimochii kaze ga fuitan desu) although are relatively weak in their hooks, demonstrate brilliant guitar lines and rhythms. As you can easily tell from their previous two albums, guitar and rhythm are the two very things that this band master. In this album however, the guitar phrases are not as funky by comparison.
Into the middle of A Good Time and things start feeling very loose, maybe too loose. 白い光 (Shiroihikari) might serve better as an ending ballad than 海辺の町へ (umibe no machi e). I mean, at least the dream-like, slightly distorted voice production has made it sounds like one, while the latter is simply too plain.
散歩日和に布団がぱたぱたと (band Ver.) (sanpo biyori ni futon ga patapata to) is an old song that originally comes from the first album in a tambourine version. This remix reminds me of the DYGL song “Thousand Miles Away” but this time, I will have to go with the original version because of the stereoscopic vision it delivers with those well-bedded sound waves.
You know the moment when your mind has been wandering and ignoring the music you’re playing then there’s one song that suddenly draws you back? “Surely” is that song. As the lead single, it freshens your sense of hearing with to-the-point riffs and beats full of buzz. And again, I wish Never Young Beach could have picked something else over the current ending tune which dilutes the vibrant tension “Surely” has built.
Never Young Beach has always been one of my top picks from today’s Japanese indie pop. In the Yashinoki House era they were still experimenting – It was obvious that they put pretty much a little bit of everything in that album – and eventually made it somewhat choppy, but rather compelling. Meanwhile “fam fam”, needless to say, is an epoch-making album that breaks the spell of “Cool bands only sing in English.” in the current Japanese avant-garde indie scene. I would sing along with the whole album while dancing awkwardly in my car seat driving down the I-95 highway when no one is looking. The album displayed great song writing, and I do believe one day they can resume that excellence in a snap of the fingers.
If you ask me whether I have any suggestions for their next summer record? You know what, I just hope they can put more bird tweets like what they did in the first two records. I don’t know why they’ve stopped doing so but, I really like birds.
Never Young Beach - A Good Time
Tracklist:
- Natsu no dokidoki
- Nanka sa
- Kimochiii kaze ga fuitan desu
- Sundays Best
- Shiroi hikari
- Sanpo biyori ni futon ga patapata to (Band Ver.)
- City Lights
- Surely
- Umibe no machi e
