alice nine. - Alpha

alice nine.'s releases have always been a little hit or miss, and unfortunately their second album Alpha, released November 28th, is mostly mediocre. Glaringly missing are the heavy, headbang-inducing tracks alice nine. does so well, and none of the songs truly stand out immediately to vie for your attention. Despite reaching 6th place on the Oricon charts the week of its debut, Alpha is a disappointing release from a band that have come out with better.

The album opens with ZERO, which has a deceptively hard lead in. The heavy drums and pounding baseline are a promising beginning, but the song plateaus around the chorus. There is a bit of swing element in ZERO and it seems to reminisce of Pierrot's Yuuyami Suicide, but with a strangely out of place rock beat.

Next is cosmic world, the first release off the album. The song is more pop than rock and rather catchy, so it's sure to be popular, but it most likely won't leave a lasting impression. In contrast, Aoi Tori will leave an impression, although a disconcerting one. The song is interesting, playing with off beats, but the way Shou belts out the lyrics makes the listener feel somewhat unstable.

The fifth track on the album is 9th Revolver, a slow song with experimental vocals. The mix of echoes and wailing achieves the desired effect of black, melancholy nostalgia, but although depressing, the song isn't horrible. Following it is the only truly hard song on the album, -Dice-. Despite the garbled English, Shou really shows off how much he has worked on his singing. The song alternates between distorted growling and soaring vocals, and is driven by furious drumming throughout. All in all, -Dice- is definitely one of the stand out songs on the album.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is track eight, Kousai, a beautifully sweet ballad. Kousai proves that alice nine. is capable of creating something epic; at nearly eight minutes long, the song never gets boring or loses steam. With the feeling of drifting scenery, it's easy to think of Kousai as a song off a movie soundtrack.

The remaining new song on Alpha is eraser-, which sounds like a slowed down version of cosmic world. White Prayer, NUMBER SIX., Jewels and Blue Planet, all of which were previously released as singles, are also included on the album. Though re-mastered, there aren't any noticeable differences from the original versions. Ending the album is Cradle to [Alpha], a short, almost wholly digital instrumental piece. It's actually a pretty uplifting sound and shows Hiroto's talent at programming.

On the whole, Alpha falls a little bit flat to the expectations built up by alice nine. fans. With only a few memorable tracks, there seems to be a void where an album should be. Hopefully, with the coming new year alice nine. will also come out with something fresh, edgy and alluring.

Alpha's first press limited edition also comes with a DVD containing music videos for cosmic world and Blue Planet.