Sister Act

Angerme – BIG LOVE

Since 2014, Hello! Project has stuck to a fairly consistent schedule where their groups release an album every three-ish years, and Angerme’s BIG LOVE just barely missed creeping through the 4-year window by a mere two months. I suspect the company decided to hold the album back to more closely align with the coming graduation of group leader Akari Takeuchi, who has been the nexus of Anju’s reputation for being cool, talented and noisy since S/mileage became Angerme in 2015. The group’s sound has evolved since “Taiki Bansei,” but their music has relied upon four musical mother sauces for the bulk of their output: hard, funky, cool and dramatic. Most of Anju’s songs to this point have fit at least one of these categories — and usually more than one — which isn’t surprising as they work well as descriptors for Takeuchi herself. So it’s weird that Take-chan’s final release with Angerme sounds almost like a cover album of the unit’s sister groups.

Whatever you thought BIG LOVE was going to sound like, forget it — this ain’t that. My first listen confused me enough to conclude that this was one of the least H!P sounding albums to ever be released by an H!P group, but that’s not true. It sounds very H!P. What it doesn’t like is Angerme — not much, anyway. If you would’ve played me these arrangements with guide vocals, I’d have assumed that this was a Juice=Juice album, because so many of the tracks are slickly produced contemporary pop with most of the dramatic and noisy Anju edges filed down and buffed to a sleek, high-gloss finish. Are they trying to make the noisy girls… grow up?

BIG LOVE kicks off noisily enough with the idol-rock “Survive~ Ikiteku Tame ni Yume wo Min da.” Loud guitars and synths carry an upbeat heater that would sit comfortably on any Angerme single released over the past three years. It’s a solid opener — not “holy fuck!” mind-blowing, but it competently does its job of saying “Hi! Welcome to the new Angerme album” before jumping into the funky swamp-rock of “Bukkowashitai.” The opening guitar riff is sicker than Juice=Juice during the 2022 Tokyo Idol Festival, and the interplay between that riff, the busy syncopated bass and the half-time shuffle backbeat is magical. Unless you’re paralyzed, you will move your body to it, and it won’t stop there because whoever the bass player is seems to have been possessed by James Jamerson. The groove and chord progressions offer ample room for the better singers to stretch out with some soulful ad-libs, and for everyone to belt out some rock ‘n’ roll shouts. This Takui Nakajima slice of Southern funk-rock is so fun that even Taisei took to the organ to get in on the fun. It’s awesome, and while it’s suitable for Anju, I can’t shake my intial reaction that it feels more like Juice=Juice.

“Feels more like Juice=Juice” also describes three of the next four songs, starting with the neo-80s pop of “23ji no Persona.” I say “neo-80s” because the song is contemporary H!P synth-pop, but with a moody retro vibe driven by classic Oberheim OB-X sounds. (Or are they Prophet 5 sounds? Hell if I know, but they are very 80s analog.) The production is so much in line with the polished retro-inspired pop that has dominated post-Sayubee Juice=Juice releases that you could scarcely be blamed for assuming this is J=J, but the distinctive voices of Takeuchi and Ayano Kawamura quickly jolt you back to reality. The guitar solo here — as with most on BIG LOVE — is wicked.

Speaking of moody, “Nekkara Playboy” follows with cool, laid-back funk that again channels the 80s, and it’s the most blatantly Juicy track on BIG LOVE. This chill head-bobber feels like it was intended to be a Ruru/ReiRei/Riai feature, but instead goes to the small unit of Takeuchi, Kawamura, Shion Tamenaga and Yuki Hirayama. Take-chan and Yuki do the heavy lifting here, but it’s Yuki who really stands out. She gets the opening half of the first verse B melody as a solo, and the girl chews it like the first meal after a 10-year prison stretch. This is what she’s been hinting at during her first year in the big-girl group, and it’s like seeing a flower pop into full bloom. Yuki’s voice is so distinctive — not only within Angerme, but H!P overall — in how Western it sounds to me. There’s a quality to her timbre that I don’t hear in most J-idol singers — even the good ones — that stands out even in group lines, and she sings with natural expressive soul. I think Yuki is well positioned to inherit a lot of Takeuchi’s big lines upon the latter’s graduation.

The string of not-really-J=J songs is broken by “Top!,” which isn’t the song of the same name from Morning Musume’s No. 5 album, but would nonetheless feel cozy nestled into any of that group’s last three long-players. It’s minimal electronic pop with a dark and anxious edge in the mold of “CHO DAI,” “Shinjiru Shika!” or “Chu Chu Chu Bokura no Mirai.” The dry treatment of the vocals and main instruments during the verses feels stark against the reverb-drenched synths behind them, which enhances the nervous energy of the chord progression and melody. While this slightly creepy track is very much contempo MM’xx, the trio of Rikako Sasaki, Moe Kamikokuryo and Rin Kawana carry it off superbly.

“Sister Sister” brings back the current-day J=J mood with more polished, soulful idol-pop. Most of the songs on BIG LOVE feature musical surprises of one form or another, and here it’s the odd time changes in the chorus which I haven’t figured out yet. I think it actually starts with the final bar of the verse, but every time I try to count it out I get lost. Of all the Juice=Juice sounding songs on this album, this is the one that I most wish actually went to J=J, because I think their voices would make it better.

Things get a little weird with the last of the small unit songs, “Maa, Ikka!.” Layla Ise, Rin Hashisako, and Wakana Matsumoto deliver light psychedelic-pop with the emphasis on “light,” as this is far more McCartney than Lennon, and more cute than trippy. “Penny Lane” and “You’re Mother Should Know” are the obvious touchstones for the arrangement, which probably explains why this feels like a Golden Era Tsunku-penned B-side to me. It’s cute and catchy, if a little bit out of place with the rest of the songs, but this is an idol album after all.

The album closes with the beautiful, easy pop of “Forever Friend,” which I assumed was another Nakajima joint, but turns out to be the work of Ken Iijima and Tomohiro Sumikama. Maybe they’re Takui fans, or maybe it’s coincidence; either way they delivered a very Takui-esque winner. From the “Saturday In The Park” piano intro to the final major-7th chord, “Forever Friend” is pure H!P pop perfection. To be blunt, though, this should’ve gone to Tsubaki Factory, because the pretty chord structure, melodies and key changes are the very foundation on which the House of Tsubaki has stood for its entire existence, and — I can’t believe I’m about to say this — I think Tsubaki’s generally weaker vocals would’ve been more effective on this than Anju’s more advanced pipes. That having been said, Anju handles this absolute gem with aplomb, and it will serve them well come Take-chan’s graduation.

My only nit-picky criticism of BIG LOVE is the same as I had for Juice=Juice’s terzo album, which is that I’m not a fan of segregating all singles tracks to a separate disc. Eight new songs is great, but I miss the classic long-player feel of sprinkling a few of the best newer single tracks in with the new album tracks. In particular, “Kuyashii wa,” “Piece of Peace” and “Aisubeki Beki Human Life” could’ve been worked into this track listing pretty easily to create that LP vibe, while fleshing out the track count to a more album-like eleven songs and making it feel more like an Angerme album in the process.

BIG LOVE is so damned good, though, that I’m not nearly as wedded to those criticisms as I’d be with lesser albums. To that point, I’ve already listened to this album more in two weeks than I have BEYOOOOO2NDS in six months. I’ve seen some harowota concerned that the generally softer vibe of this album might signal a sound and image change for Anju in their post-Takeuchi form, and while I appreciate not wanting a group to move on from the thing that grabbed you in the first place, the music on BIG LOVE is top-shelf H!P. Change in and of itself isn’t the issue — Angerme was itself a major change from the sugary cute idol-pop of S/mileage — it’s the type of change, and that’s where my concern lies. Because if Angerme is going to sound this much like its sister groups, then what is the point of Angerme?