mihimaru GT - mihimarise

mihimaru GT's popularity has soared in the last year or two: 2007 saw a successful live tour, as well as their first "best of" compilation, The Best of mihimaru GT, come in at twenty-fourth on the Oricon Top 100 Albums of 2007. The musical duo of Hiroko and Miyake continued their success in 2008 with four more charted singles and their fourth studio album, mihimarise.

As usual with their studio albums, mihimarise's cover art is a bold and stylized illustration featuring Hiroko and Miyake. It jumps out at prospective listeners. It's a great first impression, and what waits inside is a grand affair that does not disappoint. The album also includes a radio interview that mihimaru GT had with Kosaka Daimaou as the very last track; even if a listener doesn't understand Japanese, the pleasant and light-hearted interview gives them a look into the personalities of the duo.

The album begins like a live show: a powerful orchestral opening evokes the feeling of a hero appearing to a crowd following a victory, before mixing in turntable scratches and a catchy electric guitar riff to bring listeners to the rapping of Miyake and Hiroko. Hiroko's rapping, surprisingly, possesses a cool tough-girl attitude to it, especially when the next song Giri Giri Hero begins; Hiroko opens the song with the optimistic and energetic vocals usually featured in mihimaru GT's songs. Giri Giri Hero is a great follow-up to the first track; it's an uplifting tune that stays in your head, especially the line: "Giri giri hero, don’t stop!"

Next in the line-up is the I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, which is a cover of the Kylie Minogue classic. I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY is everything a cover should be: it's not just mihimaru GT singing the song, but making it relevant to their style while maintaining the song's original flavor. Injected with an energy laced with mihimaru GT, turntables, rap, a catchy bridge featuring Miyake and trumpets, this song is fun and upbeat and something to play on loop.

The third track, Bon Voyage, follows in the footsteps of the previous songs in maintaining the optimistic energy, but composition-wise it seems somewhat disorganized. The "ooh-ooh's" repeating throughout in the background are fresh and cute but occasionally clash with the vocals; likewise, the harmonizing in the chorus doesn't work all the time and feels more discordant than harmonic.

Before listeners get too tired from the three hits of high-energy dance tunes, mihimaru GT gives the opportunity to rest and unwind with reggae-infused Tokyo~tokyo (also featuring J-pop artist Kusuo) and Love Sick. Love Sick is a departure from what fans are used to hearing from mihimaru GT; it's very down tempo with a soft synthesizer background and a light percussion to keep the beat. It's a nice finish to the first half of the album.

Blue Tagging, a mix of turntables and samples of mihimaru GT's rapping, acts as the official break in the album. However, rather than launching into another series of high-energy dance tunes, mihimaru GT gives us Ai Kotoba, a sweet, mid-tempo song that wouldn't feel as staid if listeners hadn't already wound down with the last three tracks. Luckily, eegana and Gazen Yeah! hit listeners with a wave of energy. The reggae-influenced eegana has Hiroko trying out a different voice and style of rapping to unexpectedly, bizarrely...cute results! It's an offbeat and humorous song with a lot of personality and freshness. Gazen Yeah! makes for a double-play of fresh and fun tracks, with a jazzy, surf rock-inspired electric guitar introduction that immediately sucks listeners into this bouncy tune that continues to get better throughout.

Once again, listeners are given a chance to wind down with Birthday Song, which features Tokita Shintarou from Sukima Switch, and diverge. Both are very sincere songs, whose highlights are the instrumentals. diverge, in particular, has very well-composed orchestral, piano and electric guitar support. diverge's vocal composition would have been just as strong as a Hiroko-heavy song, if not for Miyake's somewhat gratuitous rap in the middle.

ALIVE is the cherry on top of the cake that is this album. It's a great way to finish off the album: clapping and a powerful, moving chorus give this song an inspirational and uniting feeling found in gospel songs. The song feels meant to bring all of the fans - and the world - together under the bright music of mihimaru GT. And, even more appropriately, the song finishes with the sound of cheering and whooping.

mihimarise's track list feels very much like the set list of a live, especially with the introduction (Theme of mihimaLIVE 2), the interlude (Blue Tagging) and the final song, ALIVE. The album shows great balance and the versatility in the kinds of songs that mihmaru GT can produce, and in the songs themselves, strong composition and balance between the vocals of Hiroko and Miyake. mihimarise possesses the intimate but infective energy that's usually only found at a live performance, and it's bound to get everyone listening grooving along to the beat.