Album Spotlight:シンセカイ「Shin Sekai」

     
     This is an album by the band Hello Sleepwalkers, released on 15, Feb, 2017, titled シンセカイ「Shin Sekai」or, New World in English. While this album may have a shorter play time of 27 minutes due to having only seven songs, compared to Masked Monkey Awakening, the songs within are still worth the purchase. This album still retains their energy, and musical aptitude, while feeling slightly more focused.
     
     The first song, titled 新世界「New World」is the title track and is something that fans come to expect, when it comes to the energy of the performance, and the vocal commitment made by Shuntaro-san. The second track, titled Sleep tight, is a slightly slower song, which really picks up, and works well with the back and forth with the tempo changes throughout. Track three, Rollin' is reminiscent of earlier songs with the guitar work, that is complimented by the bass and drums respectively, the vocals are also done well with the back and forth between Shuntaro-san and Narumi-san which can be seen as a main draw for people to this band. The rest of the album is filled with songs that flow between slower songs of a more subdued tempo and vocalizations and higher energy songs that are expressed well through the vocals of Shuntaro and Narumi, both toghether and separately.

     The Album may be on the shorter side, but the energy, and commitment to entertainment is apparent, and that does a lot to make it worth it. Hopefully, this band is allowed to keep to its sound, and is not forced to change to fit what is "popular". It is that hope, and the potential they have as a band that this album is recommended to those who like higher energy, quicker tempo music. While there is an amount of "same-ness" to the sound from previous albums, there seems to be enough extra here, to hope for more of the same in the future.
~Koyuuki