I'm Bam. I like possums, I like music! Current reviews in the works: The Sticks (Mother Mother, 2012), 0 (Low Roar, 2014)
Bam's Music Reviews: Millennium Mother (Mili, 2018)
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I'm Bam. I like possums, I like music! Let's get into it~
Millennium Mother is a 2018 album by the Japanese indie band Mili, known for tracks for anime like Goblin Slayer and video games like Library of Ruina. It's currently their latest full album that isn't associated with another piece of media and happens to be my first experience with the band. I sometimes feel rather unnerved jumping into works from personnel I've never experienced before, and writing a review based on such first impressions is nearing fright. However, I want to give myself a challenge, and this blog has to start out somehow, right? Without further ado...
What immediately jumps at me about the album is something Mili is most well-known for - mixing classical elements with modern electro sounds, something which I utterly adore. The beautiful, sharp strings mixed with modern indie rock tones give the album an amazing and unique sound, all of which is further elevated by the amazing tone of the lead singer, Cassie Wei. Wei's clear and elegant singing mixed with her amazing usage of both Chinese and a self-created "nonsense language", which seems to have a good amount of influence from traditional romance languages (while she is of Chinese birth, she grew up in Canada, which is likely the source of this influence) gives her performance a somewhat angelic quality to it. Combining this with EDM-like sounds, such as the drums on songs like "Lemonade" and "Milk", serve to give the album as a whole an ethereal tone.
Despite the album sporting a rather daunting 19 tracks, the actual work only clocks in at around 68 minutes, likely as a result of multiple tracks being a bit on the shorter side, with the opening track, "Boys in Kaleidoscope", only clocking in at around 1:34. While some might have issues with the quantity-over-length approach, I personally don't mind it at all. The shorter tracks serve as both breathers from the heavy hitters of the album, along with an opportunity to be more experimental, such as the track "Gertrauda", a 2-minute track sung entirely in nonsense language a cappella, or "Rubber Human" incorporating stock cartoon sound effects to the backing track. These smaller tracks help the album stand out from the endless sea of typical indie J-Pop bands that come and go within moments and give it lasting value.
However, it's hard not to see them as lesser tracks compared to the big tracks of the album: "Vitamins", a high-tempo collaboration with fellow Japanese composer world's end girlfriend sic, or "TOKYO NEON", the most unequivocally "J-Rock-y" song on the album, not to mention "world.search (you);", a track that mixes new-wave sounds with a cute story of an AI trying to find true love (this track happens to share many resemblances to a song from their 2016 album "Miracle Milk", going by the title "world.execute (me);").
But all of these tracks pale in comparison to easily the greatest track on the album: "Camelia", a beautifully bittersweet waltz describing the relationship between two sisters, and how the one whose perspective Wei is singing from has to resort to murder to protect their sibling. The piano and Wei's singing work in pure harmony, a harmony which is even further strengthened in the chorus with a melancholic string section, led by a downright tear-inducing violin-concertina duet. Calling the track the high-point of the album would honestly be a great understatement, and it was the key reason why I decided to have this album serve as my introductory review.
Overall, "Millenium Mother" serves as an excellent example of not only the power of independent artists, but also shows off how international relations can sometimes come together to produce something that hasn't been heard before. I'm greatly looking forward to the future works of Mili, and wish the band the best of luck in the all-encompassing abyss that is the modern music scene. Shout-outs to my friend Danno for recommending this album to me!
Verdict: 9/10 Top Song: "Camelia"
Album name: Millenium Mother Creator Name: Mili Genre: Electro-Classical Fusion, J-Pop Release Date: April 28th, 2018
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Millennium Mother is a 2018 album by the Japanese indie band Mili, known for tracks for anime like Goblin Slayer and video games like Library of Ruina. It's currently their latest full album that isn't associated with another piece of media and happens to be my first experience with the band. I sometimes feel rather unnerved jumping into works from personnel I've never experienced before, and writing a review based on such first impressions is nearing fright. However, I want to give myself a challenge, and this blog has to start out somehow, right? Without further ado...
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