HANGRY & ANGRY – Sadistic Dance November 1, 2009

Track Listing

1. Mr. Monkey
2. Top Secret
3. Sadistic Dance
4. Lady Madonna
5. Doubt
6. Angelia (crash berlin version)
7. Shake Me
8. Kill me Kiss me (crash berlin version)
9. GIZA GIZA (crash berlin version)
10. The☆PEACE! (h&A Death Tracks)

1. Mr. Monkey

I find it that a gothic-looking duo would start the album off with a track called Mr. Monkey.  I do like the electroness of the song and it continues to show the group’s darker sound.  Unfortunately, it also still shows the awkward harmonizations with Yossie and Rika.  I do love the chorus where the music gets louder and crazy, but I can’t help and cringe at Rika-chan’s performance.

2. Top Secret

As the main promotional track, it was a pretty cool choice.  It suits more towards Rika’s vocals and id doesn’t hurt Yossie either (actually makes her more better).  I’ll admit that I love the bridge a lot, but what killed the song is the high note, neither girl can pull it off correctly and ~top shhheeecret~ isn’t fooling anyone.  Still it’s one of the more interesting songs and can be amazingly catchy given the right opportunity.

3. Sadistic Dance

The only “single” of the era, Sadistic Dance is still pounding in my head all the time.  We do go back to hearing odd harmonizations, but given that the song is catchy and sounds like a more synthed up version of “Kill me Kiss me”.  The lyrics don’t really sound clear, especially the English ones like ~this is my bible~ in the second chorus….it comes off more as ~this is my life~  I don’t know but whatever, the song is pretty cool.

4. Lady Madonna

Are they saying ~spiders~ at the beginning?  Whatever, Yossie opens the song after that strange opening to this gloomy arrangement that evidently picks up right after she’s done.  It’s weird that the chorus is really grungy and heavy and totally out of context with the song itself, it just seems so not what should be there, but what could I do?  It’s like Jekyll and Hyde within itself (that’s the best comparison I could come up with).

5. Doubt

Doubt starts off just like “Lady Madonna” with it’s dark and empty atmospheric air about it before the pounding drums and the girls come in quite messy with the first part.  It seems Doubt is H&A’s “epic” track, but for me, it sounds like a Momosu track for some reason…I’m not enjoying this track much.

6. Angelia (crash berlin version)

Now a few tracks off their debut “Kill me Kiss me” got rearranged and remixed for the albums release starting off with “Angelia”.  It seems not a whole lot was changed with the arrangement of Angelia, but it does seem there was a little more added more like an epic strings addition and a few cutbacks on the guitar and more sound for the vocals.  It seems like an equal amount of change and I like that.

7. Shake Me

The final new track, Shake Me starts off like a calmer version of “Sadistic Dance”, but then moods instantly change and the song goes towards a more electronica style and while I question the motive for changing styles, it’s bold and the chorus does bring back a summerish mood.  I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite, but I guess it was nice to bring some change to the album.

8. Kill me Kiss me (crash berlin version)

Sadly, the rearranged version of Kill me Kiss me was very disappointing.  They took out what made the original so amazing and replaced with dance beats and left the chorus feeling oddly empty.  I mean the guitars and hard hitting chords was what made the song great…I’m sorry this was a bigger downer than what Anna T. did with “cocoon”.

9. GIZA GIZA (crash berlin version)

I actually don’t remember much of GIZA GIZA’s original take, so I had to take a quick listen before getting back to this.  The new version is actually more of an acoustic version of the original, but still featuring electric guitar, and synths, just more pronounced acoustic guitar.  I thought this was a cleaner version when compared to the “KmKm” cut so I’m happy with what we got here.

10. The☆PEACE! (h&A Death Tracks)

Yup, the girls were able to cover a Momosu track (since y’know, they were once a part of the group.)  Anyway, they decided to take “The☆Pea~ce!” and give it the deadly spin and what we got was like death metal version…I was shocked to hear such a fierce cover of this song.  On Momosu’s version, Rika-chan was the main vocalist for it, so it’s not surprisingly that you hear a lot of Rika over Yossie, but it’s rather tough since both are filtered a bit.  I didn’t expect such huge transition from Momosu’s pop-filled original, but damn was this different for H&A too.

Tracks Recommended

• Sadistic Dance
• Angelia (crash berlin version)
• Lady Madonna
• The☆PEACE! (h&A Death Tracks)

For H&A’s first full-fledged album, I didn’t think the direction of a more synth-based sound was right for them.  They should stick with hard rock and little synths.  Sadistic Dance is a nice album, but it’s not one of the top, but that’s just cuz the members still have to learn how to harmonize. 

HANGRY & ANGRY – SadisticDance April 12, 2009

Track Listing

1. SadisticDance

1. SadisticDance

Straying away from the hardass sounds of “Kill Me Kiss Me”, SadisticDance contains a lot of synths which definitly has an effect on the song and it’s definitly one of their catchier songs.  I gotta say, this is a more dance-oriented track with rock twinges.  Yossie sounds pretty thin a good portion, but this song suits more towards Rika-chan this time and definitly a track worth getting.

 

 

HANGRY & ANGRY’s first digital release was for a pretty awesome song.  I’m so happy to see new material from them since their mini-album was almost perfect.  SadisticDance seems to be striving away from a harder sound to a dance style and it worked for them.  Another high quality track.

HANGRY & ANGRY – Kill Me Kiss Me November 20, 2008

Track Listing

1. Kill Me Kiss Me
2. Angelia
3. GIZA GIZA
4. Romantic ni Violence
5. WALL FLOWER

1. Kill Me Kiss Me

Yep, you guessed title and promotional track.  We begin this mini with what I liked to call…(What the hell!) Let’s look at who we’re talking about Yossie and Rika previously in Morning Musume and ex-H!P decided to group up together and go totally goth on us.  Anyway to the song, it’s surprising that they put this out.  The song is very rock and interestingly there’s a evil to it that is so awesome.  Yossie makes this work with her more deeper voice and definitly devoid of the idol-like sound she used to have.  Rika on the other hand is still sounding very girly.  Put them together and you do get an interesting sound.  They even vocodered there voices at the end of the chorus which was strange.  Definitly one of the cooler tracks this year.

2. Angelia

Angelia is like “Kill Me Kiss Me” but more focused on the synths rather than the hard guitars.  Sadly, this does sound like what Morning Musume would do given the chance to darken their identities.  This really isn’t that bad and the darker synths give it life.  Rika though kind of ruins because of the idol voice of hers.  There’s a cool bell part that leads into an awesome guitar solo.  What does Angelia mean anyway?

3. GIZA GIZA

Kind of a hectic piano start, but there’s even more synths found here than the last two tracks.  It also seems a bit upbeat after the underlying dark stuff.  I have to say both girls really sound great here.  Sadly, the chorus was a hot mess.  Like they are singing really fast and the slow down near the end of it.  The verses however are the memorable parts of the song. 

4. Romantic ni Violence

Starts off kinda mysterious, but then it becomes a more clappier “Kill Me Kiss Me” luckily, the bass really stands out the beginning and the girls get better here as well.  The best parts are the verses because of the drum/bass moments…So awesome.  The chorus also is very catchy as well.  Even the clapping seems fun and easy to hook easily.  Best song here right now.

5. WALL FLOWER

Now this seems to be more along the lines of Morning Musume.  It does sound less aggressive as the previous tracks and is prolly the most upbeat track of the mini.  It’s another really good memorable track from them.  The only thing that I didn’t enjoy was why did it end with this track?  I would’ve put it after “GIZA GIZA” for more connections. 

 

 

I was totally surprised by this.  After seeing the PV for Kill Me Kiss Me I was doubting that the album was gonna be a flop, turns out this mini-album was really good even though it’s 5 songs.  All 5 songs that I really enjoyed and I’ve haven’t had that.  The great thing is that H!P isn’t even backing this up which is super awesome.  I hope this isn’t a one time thing because Rika and Yossie are an awesome duo…maybe Makoto Ogawa could join too.  LOVE HER!  *RECOMMENDED*