Search - Garnet Crow :: Sparkle

Garnet Crow shines once again

Mario R. Baumann | Bellevue, WA | 07/25/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Garnet Crow built a strong following in Japan by just releasing singles. After six singles, and one mini-album, they released their first cd, "First Soundscope", which rocketed to to 6th place on the Oricon charts. Now, one and a half years later, Garnet Crow is back with their second album. How does it stand up to their awesome singles and strong first album? The cd does not only "Sparkle" (the actual name of the album, not "spakle"), it absolutely shines. The two strongest tracks, 3: Timeless Sleep and 7: Sky Blue, show Garnet Crow's ability to write catchy songs with catchy and strong lyrics. Timeless Sleep falls very short of the power and lyrical supiriority of "Flying" (Garnet Crow's forth single, used in the video game Tales of Eternia). The future seems bright for Garnet Crow, as their talents seem limitless. All their music is written by Yuri Nakamura, the bands lead vocalist, while all the lyrics are written by Azuki Nana, the bands keyboardist. If Garnet Crow had any weaknesses, it would have to be their grasp of the english language. Their manipulation of english language has seemingly degraded since the release of their first singles and their first album. Not only is the actual sung english unclear, the grammar is just as horrible. This is not a large problem though, because many japanese bands can not correctly sing in english. Over all, "Sparkle" is highly recommended for any fan of Japanese music."