This is Michael Mixerr. Today I will review the Handsome JET - ￢(゜~゜)Г.
Duck [アヒル] is a perfect song to play at night during the peaceful nighttime or smooth daytime. Duck has that peaceful nighttime vibe to it and also that quiet lonely day vibe. The song Duck has a rather happy upbeat vibe yet sad mournful vibe at the same time. Handsome JET himself takes the lead in this song as a vocalist. Take notice of the harmonics used on Duck. Handsome JET is the one playing the harmonica and using a Gibson J-45 guitar.
Jet Boogie is a Handsome Jet melody of all the songs on the ￢(゜~゜)Г album all onto one track. Think of this song as a mega melody. A loud heavy hard rock mega melody is what it sounds like. Hard rock meets heavy metal mega in this mega melody song. The volume is set quite loud! Handsome JET does his usual chanting, singing, and yelling through the enchanted power of music. Handsome JET himself takes the lead in this song as a vocalist.
self-haunting is a dark duo cut with longtime Handsome JET Project members Toshio Sakurai and Handsome Jet. Handsome JET played the guitar. The song itself has such a dark vibe.
Cream Soda was a solo song that was an original composition written and performed by Handsome Jet. He used a Gibson J-45 guitar on the entire song. It is a personal favorite from Handsome JET. He had fun recording this song of his.
Lizard boots (とかげのブーツ) has a Country & Western music meets Enka ballads vibe to it. The song will make you want to cry.
Basically￢ (゜ ~ ゜) Г is a non-facial person. It is supposed that the face is not understood. Meaning that the face of the person who wrote this album is not to be understood, to be shown, and remain unknown to the audience regardless of what they want to see and hear. [￢ (゜ ~ ゜) Г is a notation used to represent an emoticon.]
Due to budgetary concerns, Handsome JET played using a single acoustic guitar. He used a Gibson J-45 guitar and harmonica.
Songs from Bemani games such as GuitarFreaks and Drummania were not included due to copyright reasons. Even the original songs he wrote for Bemani games GuitarFreaks and Drummania are not on this album.
Toshio Sakurai sang on most of the dark songs such as Duck and self-haunting. YUEI had nothing to do with this album. Despite being associated with Handsome JET in the Bemani games, Yuei-san had nothing to do with the recording or engineering of this album.
The album went No. 1 on the bestsellers for Amazon.jp in indie rock during the year of 2006. It was No. 1 in bestsellers for indie rock.
Only around 10,000 copies of ￢ (゜ ~ ゜) Г were pressed on CD and sold via Amazon, by Handsome JET directly himself, sold at GITADORA LIVE concerts, or were sold at those Handsome JET Live concerts hosted by Bemani with help of Konami. Most copies of ￢ (゜ ~ ゜) Г were pressed sold on Amazon.com.
Sadly however, ￢(゜~゜)Г and Honto (the CD-r that Handsome JET only gave out at concerts) was the only album from Handsome JET that was ever released. Lead singer Handsome JET of Handsome JET Project died in May 2008 during a traffic accident while riding a motorcycle with his friend in Japan. The friend survived while Handsome JET did not. Handsome JET sang a multitude of songs from Konami originals and licensed covers alike. His real name has never been revealed and is not known. Handsome JET Project and Handsome JET himself would have taken off to become a national success in Japan if the lead singer hadn't died.
*Handsome Jet is the name of the lead singer of the coincidental band Handsome JET Project consisting of Handsome Jet, YUEI (Yuei Uematsu), Kozo Nakamura, Brad Holmes, Asaki, Thomas Howard Lichtenstein, and Toshio Sakurai.
*He is credited as Handsome JET or Jetto-san (ジェットさん) as he was in the Bemani games GuitarFreaks and Drummania.
I rate this album, ￢(゜~゜)Г , 4/5****!
No comments:
Post a Comment