Reviews (5) Tip Taps Tip

I've spent so much time over the past few weeks puzzling over Halcali's return that it feels slightly strange to actually have the thing in my hands. It almost seems like I've written too much about the song already, but it deserves this one last run though. That's mostly because, on my stereo the bass thumped life into the song that didn't exist for me before. While that bland middle eight still smacks off a "hey look, we can sing!" moment and as such feels out of place, there's an inherent sweetness in the song that should hopefully appeal to the 15-25 year old kids who are most likely to buy it.
Onto what was the main attraction for me, the b-sides. Both of these songs are thankfully handled by the same guy, i-dep's Nakamura Hiroshi, creating a unity in the sound and adding tightness to what are usually resigned to the throwaway tracks of a bands back catalogue. It's only two songs, but it's good to feel a sense of continuity with this band again, something that kept Bacon together but which led Susume to fall apart. While these songs are no masterpieces, they are both arguably more Halcali than the a-side can attend to, and as such are probably the main reason you need to get hold of this single.
The H and Y penned Halcali 'n' Bass has some of the easiest, sweetest rapping we've had since Halcali Bacon. Listening as I write, the song is growing on me more and more. Let's not forget they wrote the lyrics to this song themselves, taking step 2 (the first being co-writing Osusume's Wakakusa Dance) in a process that will hopefully lead them to taking a more active role in the songwriting for the third album.
Pisudori (Peace Dream) is the winner though. Combining the best elements of this new, 'singing' Halcali while keeping careful tabs on the bands past, it's catchy, fun, and it's got a group of 6 girls sweetly la-la-la-ing through the chorus at the end. I'm sure you were nervous about this new Halcali as much as I was, but this is definitely the right direction for them, and has propped my spirits up again in expectation of what's to come.
Which reminds me, O.T.F. had nothing to do with this. I suppose I knew this anyway, but this is still the first Halcali release without a total produced by credit. I'd hate to see what happened on Susume happen again, and have the band rented out to make a third album with 10 different producers coming up with 10 different Halcali's. I hope they get a small group in to tighten the reins again. Now that it looks like Halfby and the rest of the old crew have been forgotten (although I'd love to see Halfby write another song for them), I wouldn't mind at all if Nakamura came back. At the very least, it feels good to be enthusiastic about this band again.

A quick note about the 'free gifts'. Don't be worried if they go out of stock before you can get a copy of the single. It's nothing to be excited about. There's a booklet detailing characters from Eureka 7, and a large sticker (shot above). Both the booklet and the sticker are larger than the CD case, meaning there's no comfortable place to store them. It's more of an annoyance than anything, to be honest.