Lost In Frustration

Juice=Juice – terzo

Juice=Juice’s third album, terzo, continues the double-CD album-plus-singles-collection format established with their first two albums and copied by Angerme on Rinnetenshou ~ANGERME Past, Present & Future~ in 2019. It’s a formula that makes the best of H!P’s frugal release schedule and brings the best of both worlds into a single release, combining a proper new album with a recent singles anthology into one package. The format only works if the original album is a proper album, though, as the three aforementioned long-players do, and this ends up being terzo’s Achilles heel.

I’ll get to that after I talk about the album tracks, though, because by and large, they’re really great. The album opens with the re-recording of “GIRLS BE AMBITIOUS,” originally from First Squeeze. This is a great update of a classic J=J song, and from what I can tell even the instruments have been re-recorded. The mix is a lot tighter with the instruments pushed forward and the opening riff centered in the stereo field, making everything feel more balanced and glued together. And hotter. I think I like it better than the original despite the absence of the Karin/Tomoko/Sayuki Holy Trinity, because the current crew kills on this. I don’t know who does that scream near the end, but it’s unique to this version, and it’s awesome.

“POPPIN’ LOVE” follows with light, funky pop in the mold of Tsubaki Factory. It’s cute and catchy, and it feels more modern than the songs of this type from -¡Una más!-, although I think there was a conscious effort to make those feel of a different era. This more modern arrangement fits the modern J=J better, I think.

The third track really should’ve opened the album. “STAGE ~Agatte Mina~” is a hard-hitting idol-rock heater that seamlessly blends rock and electronic elements into a powerful statement-track. Rei’s beat-boxing has never felt more organically integral to any song than it does in the middle instrumental section of this one. I know I harp about track order endlessly on this blog, and yeah, it’s probably because I’m old, but the psychology of track placement is real and it can transform a great group of songs into a great album. Likewise, thoughtless ordering can turn a potentially great album into a merely good one. This song is a tone-setter that was born to open concerts and this album. Placing it anywhere else was a missed opportunity.

“Mon Amour” brings mature, latin-tinged sophisticated pop featuring a sub-group of the older members (Akari, Manaka, Ruru and Rei). The dynamics between the chill verses and harder-driving choruses are nice, and highlight the versatility of J=J’s A-team.

Hiroshi Matsui (aka ROYAL MIRRORBALL) is back for his regular turn to arrange a Juice=Juice album track with “Noctiluca,” and this one sounds more blatantly like prime Tokyo Girls’ Style than either of his previous tracks with J=J, probably because he also wrote the music this time around. I’ve always kind of liked this sound for this group, and while I wouldn’t want them to adopt it as their primary sound, more than once every four years wouldn’t be terrible.

My early favorite of the new songs is “G.O.A.T.” which feels very much Swedish-KPop, at least what I remember from the early 3rd-wave KPop era when Swedish composers were finding massive success with Korean idol groups. This feels fresher than, say, PINK CRES’s early KPop inspired songs, though, and like “POPPIN’ LOVE” it’s a perfect fit for this lineup. Those funky, syncopated verses — so nasty that they have to call Janet “Ms. Jackson” — are resolved with a wonderfully poppy chorus, and the recording choices of pushing the vocals way up front in the verse, and backing them off to normal in the chorus highlights the dynamic shift to make each stand out.

The younger members get their turn on the lazy chill-pop of “Ame no Naka no Kuchibue.” This laid-back track is equal parts jazzy, funky and poppy, and it fully suits the younger, less developed (Riai excluded) voices of this sub-unit. I love that I only notice the pitch correction once, which is one time too many, but better than some of the other recent offerings from H!P.

“Platonic Planet” has been performed live since 2019, and it finally makes its recorded debut here, closing the album with what they are calling the “Ultimate Juice Version”: the current group plus the aforementioned Holy Trinity of Karin, Tomoko and Sayuki(!). It’s great to finally hear this banger in all of it’s hi-fi glory, and the added bonus of Karin, Tomoko and Sayuki makes it feel like new old stock Juice=Juice. I never noticed how great Yoshio Morita’s guitar solo is on this during concert performances, but it’s equal parts tasty and nasty, and 100% sick.

So there we have it: one remake that bests the original, one smoking debut of a three year old song and six killer new tracks. Strangely, none of the songs from the latest single made the cut, though, as all of them are consigned to the singles disc. This is a deviation from the formula, and the album disc is poorer for it. Without getting too into the weeds, I’d have included “Future Smile” and “Plastic Love” to the album disc, rearranged the track order, and offered a 10-track album that feels more like an album and less like an extended-EP, which is what terzo ultimately feels like to me. Here’s how I’d have constructed it:

1. STAGE ~Agatte Mina~
2. Platonic Planet (Ultimate Juice Ver.)
3. POPPIN’ LOVE
4. Future Smile
5. Mon Amour
6. Noctiluca
7. Plastic Love
8. G.O.A.T.
9. Ame no Naka no Kuchibue
10. GIRLS BE AMBITIOUS! 2022

If this all sounds like silly nit-picking, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. The songs that comprise terzo are all outstanding additions to the Juice=Juice catalog, and that’s why the final construction frustrates me. Your mileage may vary.