VISION
(2012)
why you'll love it: Booze soaked garage rock. Catchy and gritty.
why you'll hate it: Lacks focus and charm of older Birthday releases.
Time for our annual check in on rock god, Chiba Yusuke, and his current band, The Birthday. Just when I thought the group had become a fine tuned classic rock machine in 2010, out stepped a founding guitarist. It almost seemed like the band was rebooting with 2011's aggressive and frenetic I'm Just A Dog. Which totally rocked - don't get me wrong. I just felt like it was… a step back. Something that resulted in consequence, not so much artistic desire.
What I feared stepping into The Birthday's latest album, Vision, was more of what had just come. Thankfully, the band's classic influences are beginning to soak into you young guitarist, Fuji Kenji. His pacing is slowed down here to something fans of The Birthday are more familiar with. I was really impressed with the reservation in songs like "Riot Night Serenade" and "Kicking You". Some of the most rocking songs, like "Guerrilla", come down like a sledgehammer, rather then a fast-and-furios approach, heard on the last album. Very little of this album has what defined their last effort, which, again… I still loved. It just sounded too much like Chiba's old material in previous bands, and not what makes The Birthday special.
That's not to say Vision is a complete "back to form" album either, but I think it's a fair compromise between what they once were and where they want to go. This is a big, loud, cocky rock album. Even the hardest songs have this arena ballad feeling to them. Oddly enough, it's the most ballad-y songs that I enjoy here the most. "Storm" is the kind of song they've been trying to pull off for years, but never quite nailed until now. It's epic, fun, catchy, and easy to get swept away in, without sounding too gimmicky or like a beer commercial. The Birthday have been known to occasionally show this Aerosmith side to them in past singles, so radio friendly songs like "ROKA" and "Love Sick Baby…" didn't throw me off all that much. In fact I really began to enjoy them, and they fit in with the strutting pace of the album. The only song I can't really get into is "Because". I think that is only due to "Storm" being a much better closer though.
There is a great collection of songs here, but The Birthday still seems to be in search of a personality after the lineup shake in 2010. I wouldn't exactly call what they do classic rock anymore. They're one of the few bands out there that still have an old-school rock and roll approach, but those Led Zeppelin and Television influences are becoming less apparent. That's cool, because so many Japanese bands are so unashamed about sounding too similar to the bands they take after. But at the same time, they're not on the cutting edge either. So they're just aloof; which is only a concern for someone like me who's trying to write about and define them. Truth is, the whole album rocks, even though there isn't much of a headline to tag it with. Still some of the best rock you can find today.
