My thoughts on “Baby’s Breath”, the debut album from WILL-O’.
Release Date: August 17th 2020
Tracklist
1. Baby’s Breath
2. One Way!!
3. Lady
4. I Will Hope
5. Baby’s Breath off vocal ver.
6. One Way!! off vocal ver.
7. Lady off vocal ver.
8. I Will Hope off vocal ver.
It’s hard enough to keep up with all of this stuff at the best of times, but I feel like I’ve been really off my game lately and I haven’t been doing that great of a job of having my ear to ground when it comes to all of this Idol stuff. Maybe I’m a bit burnt out, maybe there hasn’t been the usual volume of interesting releases to write about, perhaps a combination of the two. Still, if I see a new release from a familiar face I’m definitely taking the time to check it out.
WILL-O’ are a group that I think have released some pretty great material over the past couple of years and while they definitely have their admirers in the foreign fandom I always thought that they should be a lot more popular than they are. Their “Kanjou Sensome Hikari Emotion” single (review here) was one of my favorite releases from 2019 so that has to count for something right? Well, the group haven’t been up to too much with regards to releasing new music so far in 2020 but that’s changing now thankfully.
“Baby’s Breath” is the group’s latest single, named presumably after the flower which you’ve probably seen in a bouquet of flowers or two at some point in your life. I won’t lie, the single title and jacket cover aren’t really giving off the impression that this release is something that I’m going to be super into, but I know better than to judge a book by its cover at this point. WILL-O’ have a good track record of releasing some pretty great synthesizer infused Rock tunes and I’m hoping that despite everything telling me otherwise this is going to remain true here. I suppose the best way to find out is to take a listen, right?
Well, despite the jacket cover and song title the single’s lead track “Baby’s Breath” is leading off on a pretty bright and energetic Rock instrumental with a bit of a symphonic undercurrent which is sort of where I was expecting things to fall at least to some degree here. The riffs and drumbeat during much of the track’s verses are pretty straightforward but they’re also catchy in their simplicity so this would be a good example of doing more with less and not trying to go for some overly complex, grand composition. The vocals are nice and natural in tone, sitting nicely in the middle of the range and working well with the overall tone of the track. Not the most hook laden of verses you’re ever likely to hear but there’s a few nice subtle ones to listen out for and it’s a very pleasant listen on the whole. The vocals push higher into their range for the choruses to good effect when paired with the increasingly symphonic nature of the instrumental, though it’s a bit floaty at time for me personally but there’s a few impactful lines in there that are pretty memorable so again not overly pushing the hooks here but they’ll work their way into your brain after a few listens for sure. I also liked how the track built up steam the longer it went, getting increasingly more emotional and melodic over time until everything was in full flow by the time we got to the closing segment. Maybe not what most people are going to know WILL-O’ for but pretty enjoyable stuff here nonetheless.
Next up is the first of the single’s b-sides, the rather enthusiastically titled “One Way!!”. I feel like this track is going to be much more along the lines of what people are coming to a WILL-O’ release looking for as it starts out with a loud and pretty intense Rock instrumental with some pretty cool guitar riffs and a pounding drumbeat really setting the tone for things to come. A lot more energy to this one compared to the single’s title track, that’s for sure. A lot more attitude from the vocals too which was cool to hear as it matched perfectly with the stompy nature of the track. Quite a bit of English going on in this one too with some admittedly mixed results at times but on the whole pretty good as far as Idol songs go. There’s definitely a heavy Western influence to this one and you can hear it even more clearly in the chorus which has a very distinct female fronted Rock band vibe to it. Great melodies and catchy lyrics too might I add and definitely something I could see having pretty wide appeal if the song managed to get put in the right places. It doesn’t even really sound like an Idol song a lot of the time here which I guess could be seen as pretty high praise depending on how you look at things. Yeah, for me this is much more along the lines of what I’m into and everything from the beat to the riffs, as well as the energetic nature of the vocals make this track a super fun one to listen to. Highly recommended if you get the chance to check it out.
Despite the rather elegant name, the single’s third track “Lady” feels anything but as things get going with a pretty intense, mildly distorted Rock instrumental that also somehow manages to work a horn section into the mix for a very unexpected but at the same time rather interesting added melodic dynamic. What I wrote there just now doesn’t seem like it should work when read on paper but in practice it’s actually pretty good. There’s then a somewhat abrupt transition and the song takes on a very heavy Ska element, so at this point I don’t really have any idea what’s going on and I’m sort of just going with the flow here. Things sort of flip-flop between the two styles which makes for an interesting combination of the intense meeting the melodic and through all of that the vocals do a pretty good job of playing to both side of the coin. They’re bright, melodic and infectiously catchy when needed but are also able to lower the tone to match when the instrumental gets a bit darker and heavier. Unsurprisingly the chorus opts for the more Ska leaning style which was a good call in my opinion as it’s definitely the more instantly memorable side of the song and it also let the vocals be a bit looser and bring a bit more of a fun element to things. I’m honestly not even sure if what I’m writing here is making any sense at this point but hopefully I’ve at least done the uniqueness of this track some justice. Worth a listen just for how different it sounds in my opinion.
Last but by certainly no means least is the single’s final track “I Will Hope”, which is a nice optimistic sort of sentiment to close things out on I suppose. Things open on a pretty light note with a nice drumbeat keeping time for a very pleasant sounding piano melody to set about enchanting the ears. Suddenly the song bursts into life with a pretty awesome guitar solo adding even more color to things while winding us towards the first round of verses. Things ease up a bit once we reach this point, with the calmer more melodic style of instrumental we heard at the beginning of the track making a reappearance. The vocals have a pretty distinct Ballad style to them but there’s also plenty of moments where they break out from that in energetic fits and spurts which keeps things interesting, as does the rather ear pleasing beat that’s being provided by the drums in the background. A very technically impressive performance regardless with some great emotion being poured into it and some equally great control of the vocal delivery. They really dial things up for the choruses, though still maintaining the overall tone of the track while doing so but there’s definitely an uptick of intensity in the instrumental and the vocals rise to meet it with some pretty breathtaking performances being the end result of all of that. I’m not sure about any of you guys but as far as ways to close out a release, this one is definitely one of the more epic ones that I’ve heard in quite some time. Huge potential here to be a big song for this group and it could quite easily have been a single in its own right.
Well, this ended up being yet another impressive entry into the slowly expanding WILL-O’ discography. For me the title track is probably the least interesting of the bunch but I get what they were going for with this release and as far as the themes involved and the emotions and atmospheres being invoked from the listener I don’t think there is a single track here that isn’t an incredibly high quality and more importantly enjoyable listen.
I think I said this at the end of my last WILL-O’ review (read it here) but I’ll happily take more new music from this group whenever they want to release some. It doesn’t seem to be happening too often right now but 2020 has been a very abnormal year to say the least so hopefully next year will see a bit more activity in the studio from on of the scene’s more interesting but still not often talked about enough prospects. Check this single out folks, you won’t regret it I promise.
Rating:
