Purchase at CDJapan!

01. 鬼祭

02. 柘榴

03. 花火

hurrrr blogspot's layout stuff is stupid and never works ever . Anyway, as you can see, the single came in 3 times: one with a DVD, and two with a different B-side I believe. I don't remember which is which though....so if it's a huge deal to you, then I suggest you crank up your favorite search engine and figure it out yourself. ◕‿◕✿

 "鬼祭," like just about every release of theirs since Tsuki no Hime, came with a PV preview, giving fans a chance to hear what a short sampling of what the song will sound like. Well, based off of that, a lot of people thought it was going to be a terrible single, where as other people rejoiced from their j-indie comfort zones that this song would have a lot of growling. My original opinion was that there was way too much growling to even tell what the hell was going on in the song, but I tried it out anyway. Note, I didn't dismiss this band because I didn't like one release: Versailles fans should emulate such actions~~~~ . This song kind of strays down the same road that a lot of their darker songs take: eerie guitar riffs mixed with brooding synthesizer / thunder / crunching inserts. While  "鬼祭" does have a bit of their normal neo-traditional flair, the instrumental keyboard parts do stray a bit from the ancient Japanese instruments and instead focus more on piano, strings, and other electronic based tones. The vocals in this song are what ruined this song for a lot of people. After the lack luster chorus there is a whole section of Mashiro just going "RAAAAAAA WrAAAHHHH WRAAAAAAHHHHKROUUUU" at the top of his lungs, before growling a different section of the song. While I don't mind his growls, I feel that they don't help this song at all. The melody of it isn't even that great (both the chorus and the verses), but the fact that he just makes perturbed badger noises for most of the song doesn't make for a hit single. In the song's defense, though, the keyboard part is very nice and is a great change  from the sameness I feel they have been getting stuck in since their first album. In addition, the growls are on par with Madeth Gray'll in terms of outbursts of emotion, but they could have been excuted in a much better manner. The lesson to take home from this: you can't make a boring song less boring by just yelling through the 2/3's you don't really have lyrics for.

鬼祭 was not a complete failure though. In fact, the song "柘榴" saves it. It's another faster tempoed song with the same heavily distorted guitar style that this band is accustomed to using, mixing a beautiful chorus melody with a lot of nice rock elements. For example, the verse of the song is predominantly just vocals and base with some guitar support depending on where exactly in the song you're currently listening to. The bridge to the chorus is a lot more wild sounding due to the under water distortion on Mashiro's voice and the conflicting guitar parts. Then there's the chorus: high catchy and has a beautiful melody. I love songs that use doubling of the singer's voice really well, particularly if it's a harmony in 3rds, and "柘榴" is great at it. After the first chorus is a guitar solo that relatively relates to the rest of the song and is extremely short. Then, out of no where, there is a the Piass-esque breakdown after the last rendition of the chorus. I find the bass lines to be particularly awesome during this section and I wonder if their drummer (being an ex-the Piass member) had anything to do with that. Overall, "柘榴" is the summation of all of the great melodic rock songs the Kiryu has played with minimal kote-kei and neo-traditional wank for a change. I hope that they put this song on the next album instead of the title track (which I know they're not going to, but maybe they'll include this as a "2nd edition" version).

Last up is "花火" (fireworks). It's a slow ballad that begins with a music box motif and gradually turns into a strange mix of a soppy vk ballad and 70's psychedelic rock. Completely out of left field to me, but interesting nonetheless. I never really paid a whole lot of attention to this song, although listening to it right now I'm not finding much to complain about. I do like it, but I don't know it well enough to describe it accurately (or inaccurately). I apologize if someone out there considers this to be the best Kiryu song ever and wanted me to do it justice.