Buffalo Trance

[PV] a flood of circle - Buffalo Dance

The single off "BUFFALO SOUL", which was the first major album release by the alternative rock band a flood of circle. The band claims influences from blues and 70's hard rock, but, as you can hear, it's been really pop-ized, so to speak. "BUFFALO SOUL" does have some other decent songs on it, and, if you really like bands along the same lines as NICO Touches the Walls, it is a pretty good pick-up. My main problem with it is that I just can't stand it when bands decide to fill half of their album with utterly bland and practically interchangeable pop ballads that offer nothing memorable out of them. I understand that this might be due to their relatively recent signing to major label Victor Entertainment, but it ultimately takes away a lot of the enjoyment I could have had with the album.

For some reason, as I am contemplating over it now, it is difficult to place how the past week has been going. Lots of stuff has been going on, I suppose. Progress on the band is being made. We added another member and are currently working on hammering out the three songs that we've been practicing. Also thinking of band names, new songs to learn, and other logistical issues, but, again, progress is being made. Also made a little visit to the school Career Fair. Kind of turned out to be sort of a waste of time, but still got to talk to JET people, which was nice. Gonna be fun when I get to start the application process on that. Also gonna be fun when all my mid-terms start rolling around in the next few weeks. Enough fun to make my head explode just thinking about it.

-REG

Rainy Vision

[PV] the pillows - Ameagari ni Mita Maboroshi

Latest single from the pillows. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I wasn't really planning on posting this video. In comparison to the other 20th anniversary song "1989" that was also released not too too long ago, it makes out for a pretty uninspiring single in my honest opinion. But, being the pillows fan that I am, what the hell, today is the 20th anniversary of the pillows and it's going up. I really can't wait to hear how their Budokan performance went.

This is gonna be a short one. I've been having a lot of free time on my hands. Been trying to make progress on a number of things like the band, JET, and study abroad credit. But, it's been pretty slow going. I have a feeling that these long drags where I don't have much to do are going to be frequent during my last semester. Most of my classes are made up of mid-terms and finals, and do not have much work outside of that. So, there's probably going to be a few days where mid-terms are coming up and I'm going "What did you get yourself into" in my head. But, until then, I'll just have to keep working on stuff. Or let boredom sit in. Hopefully, it won't be the latter.

-REG

Hollow Days

[PV] UNDER THE COUNTER - Hollow Work

UNDER THE COUNTER's latest single off their recently released album "DON'T LOOK BACK" is a pretty good example of what can sometimes happen when a band gets signed onto a major label. The band signed to Universal Japan last year and it immediately had an effect on their sound. As you might notice if you compare this song with previous UTC singles like "Misora" or "No Therapy", you can immediately tell that the sound has drifted to a more touchy-feely pop ballad sound that depends way too much on keyboards and acoustic guitars for a band that used to be a straight-out alternative rock band. Now, the newest album isn't all that bad. They do have some solid songs like "Kimi, Shinkyuu Fur Coat Nakare" and "Leave me alone!!" But, I can't say I approve of the way Universal is handling the band.

Well, as for me, school has started. My schedule seems incredibly lax so far. I'm sure that'll change in a few weeks. But, for now, it's actually kind of boring. Of course, there are a couple other things I need to get done like moving forward on getting credit for my study abroad classes. Slacking on that like usual though. Hoping to get some progress on that today, but we'll have to see how that goes.

Another thing that I want to get progress on is starting a band back up. For those who didn't know, I was in a band called Super Going! during my junior year. It was pretty fun and we got to perform a bunch of times. I kind of miss that, so I'm kind of hoping to start that back up again. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.

-REG