Mizuki Nana – ULTIMATE DIAMOND

…has been leaked out yesterday. Much quicker than I expected, heh.

I think the DVD is also floating around the net nao, but I’ve still got so much work to do, and I know I’d drool over the vid for days just like usual… not good.

Anyway, most of the album songs have been discussed weekly here for the past few months or so, lol, so I’d focus more on the new songs. On to the track-by-track review of ULTIMATE DIAMOND..

1. MARIA & JOKER
Very interesting song to open the album, with weird Bond-esque tune that befits the weird title, but hell yeah I love it – as expected from Agematsu! It’s prob just me and my erojiji brain but this song exploits Nana’s, um, breath sound.. which I absolutely love. xD Oh and of course, the MARIA & JOKER pose!

2. 悦楽カメリア (Etsuraku Camellia) (Pleasure Camellia)
Previous (nose)bloody review here. Regardless of the PV, the song gave me the strongest impact of this album, just like Orchestral Fantasia did in GREAT ACTIVITY.

3. PERFECT SMILE
The whole thing is done by Itou Hiroyuki, no idea who, but he did a great job tuning down the atmosphere with a mainstream-ish pop song.. it may not what your average Nana fans expect, but this kind of song does make me smile. Or I’m just feelin’ cheesy at the moment lol.

4. Trickster
Can’t stop lovin’ that few seconds of acapella~ and this song will always hold a special spot in my heart, being Nana’s birthday present to me and all…. *runs*

5. Mr.Bunny!
It’s a playful pop song, but probably will sound better if the lyrics don’t have that much Engrish words on it. ^^; Makes me wonder how Nana has been progressing with her self-taught English lesson.. hmmm what I would give to teach her privately <3

6. 沈黙の果実 (Chinmoku no Kajitsu) (The fruit of silence)
When the strings opened the song, I knew this would sound great.. add the strong vocal and it does end up my personal favorite of all the news songs in this album.

This song’s awesomeness is credited to Shihori.. at first I couldn’t recall where I heard this name before, but pretty sure Nana talked about it in the blog… uh, yeah that one of Nana’s most scandalous(?) blog post somewhere in April.. lol this.

So this Shihori-san who gave a flying kiss to Nana was born in 1980 too, took part in the chorus for Aoi Iro and Level Hi!, yada yada.. Noto Mamiko should be careful before she steals her throne. xD

7. Brand New Tops
Previous review here. Er okay I still wish they cut the oOoOoOo JAM-Project-ish crap, but actually the song is pretty fun. And lol whatever I’d probably still jump around like maniacs for this song in Seibu later~ xD

8. 少年 (Shounen) (Boys)
I don’t like this song. :-/ It’s set then, with all due respect, Yabuki Toshirou should just stop making any new song for Nana if he still lives in the 90s like this. Prob the excessive instruments and backing vocals that disturb me the most.. um yeah, next.

9. Gimmick Game
Previous review here. Still a fun fast-paced song to listen to, glad it’s positioned before Astrogation lol, cos it will lose badly in comparison.

10. Dancing in the velvet moon
Oh God they fixed the album version!! =D =D
I didn’t have a blog yet when STARCAMP EP was released, but I was really, really pissed with the screwed CD quality.. I only have one copy of the single, does that explain? At that point I wished I was studying sound engineering and replace those deaf King Records staff. The sound was rough and sharp, I didn’t even consider this is a good song until I saw she performed it live in LIVE FORMULA.

Anyway, using a simple tool like Audacity we can see the waveform of the song.

Top is from STARCAMP EP, and bottom is ULTIMATE DIAMOND’s.. I’d love explain these in details, but it would surely bore you. The easiest way to put it is that, if it’s over the -0.5 and 0.5 mark, it’s bad. So while both version are still trying to damage my sensitive ears, the album one is obviously better. Tho I’d still listen to my DVD rip lol..

Oh anyway the song itself is still awsmly smexy no matter how many times I’ve listened to it. I’m soooo glad this is on the album, securing its slot in LIVE DIAMOND 35 days from now! Get the nosebleed buckets ready, people.

11. ray of change
I tried repeating it couple of times but it still sounds too average to me. :-/ Can’t go wrong with Nana’s voice all over it, but it’s definitely not the song I’d keep searching for later on. Its unlucky placement, sandwiched betwen the two godly songs, didn’t help too – it’s like an insert song that nobody remembers lol.

12. 深愛 (Shin Ai) (Growing Love)
Previous review here. Prob the song I’ve listened the most this year, thanks to the daily sweet torture in Japan where every single freaking store was looping Shin Ai nonstop lol. Still a stunning song (screw the shit anime), tho a decent acoustic version would prob break me to tears.

13. 蒼き光の果て (Aoki Hikari no Hate) -ULTIMATE MODE- (The End of Blue Light)
I don’t hear that much difference compared to the original anime track, provided the fact that it’s actually just a filler song.. but yeah much better than that particular song that was written on crack. The instruments awesomely stood out and Nana did put more emotion in this song, which is always a good thing.

14. Astrogation
This is also WAY better than STARCAMP EP’s version for the exact same reason explained above~ <3 And definitely still my favorite fast-paced Nana song.

15. 夢の続き (Yume no Tsuzuki) (Continuation of Dream)
Original song composed and penned by Nana-sama herself. Appropriate heart-warming ballad to close the album.. it puts a somewhat soothing end to the energetic album. And it’s good seeing her trying to compose different types of songs over the years.

Overall..

..I am quite pleased with the new album, and it does worth the wait.
Most of the lyrics are a bit cheesy if you look at it, but the music and vocal grew stronger than the previous albums. I was a bit let down with the amount of old songs included, but seeing they did put some effort and fixed the compression error, so I’m not complaining. The album flows pretty well, tho the formula kinda resembles GREAT ACTIVITY, in a good way.

Special CD?!

Another highlight of this Nana week is the album campaign, a special CD titled “ULTIMATE DIAMOND Instrumental Tracks” which means what it says, a karaoke CD for all the album songs!

To get a hold of this CD, you just need to get the first-press edition of the CD (both limited and regular), the ones with the seal in front that clearly states the application postcard is enclosed inside. The instructions will be given inside. So get more copies, people!

The deadline to submit the form is on July 7th, my guess is to encourage people to buy more albums in Seibu Dome.. which is already on my plan anyway, and few more for store bonuses. There will be 7777 winners randomly picked, I hope one of my forms will go through, but no sweat if I don’t win, there’s still this beautiful place called Yahoo! Auction lol.

Uhm, okay back to work, I need money to purchase the extra copies. See ya in the DVD review!