2008.03.19 Release - 2 1/2 of 5 stars

Info: Official // wiki.theppn
Support: Global Yesasia // US Yesasia

01. Fight The Blues 02. HEART STATION 03. Beautiful World 04. Flavor Of Live -Ballad Version- 05. Stay Gold 06. Kiss&Cry 07. Gentle Beast Interlude 08. Celebrate 09. Prisoner of Love 10. テイク５ (Take 5) 11. ぼくはくま (Boku wa Kuma) 12. 虹色バス (Niji Iro BUS) 13. Flavor Of Life (Bonus Track)

Alright. I’m saying first off that I wasn’t terribly impressed with this album, especially compared to ULTRA BLUE. It is by no means the worse album out there, but it is her worse (not counting Exodus) as far as her albums go. With that unpleasantness over with, let me tell you why:

Starting with Fight The Blues, this is no hard-hitting-drag-you-into-the-album-whether-you-like-it-or-not song like Is This Love was. Not once she starts singing, anyway. The instrumental at the beginning was promising, but once the singing starts it is a little, well, boring. And that seems to be the overall theme of the album. Both HEART STATION and Beautiful World were previous singles. I rather enjoy the chorus of HEART STATION, and Beautiful World has definitely grown on me a lot, but nothing spectacular yet.

Then, she put the ballad version of Flavor Of Life in. Hoooboy. I couldn’t stand this when it came out, and I can’t stand it now. I’m somewhat mollified that the fast-paced version was tacked onto the end but dude, way to make a slow-paced album THAT much slower. Here we go with the next two previously-released singles, Stay Gold and Kiss&Cry. I like the piano of Stay Gold, but… again. Yawn. Fine songs by themselves, not one after another. Kiss&Cry FINALLY picks the pace up a bit, and I especially like the beginning. It isn’t my favorite song of hers, but definitely one of the best on the album.

After an actual interesting Interlude, we get on to a few new songs. Celebrate has this weird disco-beat going for it. …When I say “going for it” I mean “um, what were you thinking”. And despite that, the song’s lyrics are pretty much a remixed ballad. Yeah, another one. Prisoner of Love is annoying in its repetition, but it has some good points, namely, showing off Utada’s voice. She has amazing control, and despite my beefs with this album, I certainly respect that.

I could almost forget that respect with Take 5. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the song. It’s just that, ending that way doesn’t remind me of death, and it doesn’t make some serious statement about your song-writing skillz. What it does is a) make me do a double take and make sure my album isn’t corrupted, and then b) conclude it was really shitty album-arrangement/a management gaff rather then you being all indie-artist cool. Umm. Yeah. Not exactly what you were going for, huh? One idea you shoulda just dropped.

Boku wa Kuma. You either love this song, or hate it (I’m a bear, not a car! ). Enough said. Niji Iro Bus is… annoying. I’m sorry, I have to switch the song. It is just so… happy-bouncy-shitting rainbows and really, call me jaded but I just want to roll my eyes. And then we end with my preferred version of Flavor of Life, but I had to sit through all that to get there.

To sum, I like a grand total of 4, maybe 5 songs on an album of 13. The rest I could take or leave. Or, leave in the case of Niji Iro Bus. Not spectacular, especially with the hype this album was getting. Boo.