My thoughts on “Saiteihen Romance”, the latest single from BURST GIRL.

Release Date: January 13th 2020

Tracklist

1. Saiteihen Romance
2. Saiteihen Romance (inst)

Being in an Idol group is a bit like an exercise in plate spinning, doing your best to keep everything moving while trying to balance a dozen different things all at the same time. That’s before we even take into account the many groups who are trying to go the self-produced route, whether it be musically or more on the management side of things. Throw in a partial shutdown of much of the industry for the past year or so and you really have to have a lot of drive and determination to become a lasting presence in the space.

Drive and determination are two things that BURST GIRL have in spades and their DIY ethics and self-produced nature have seen the group be able to adapt to many of the unexpected setbacks that have come their way this past year. Whether it be the pandemic, the departure of Anku then more recently founding member Miyako or whatever else, the group pushes on relentlessly and stands tall as one of the pillars of a scene that is struggling to weather the storm and ultimately recover from having its world flipped upside down overnight. While things have been bad, we could be doing much worse than to have a group like this in our corner.

Of course music is still the name of the game for BURST GIRL and while 2020 saw them only release their “story” mini-album, the collaborations within did appear to open up new directions for the group to travel in should they wish to. It’s now 2021 and “Saiteihen Romance”, the group’s latest single, is the news of the day and it’s going to be interesting to see if the group will indeed carry forward some of these newfound influences into a new record or if they might instead revert to type and opt for something a bit more familiar and Punk Rock leaning. I suppose there’s only one way to know for sure isn’t there? So let’s take a listen and see what BURST GIRL have in store for us on this outing shall we?

Well it would appear that “Saiteihen Romance” has gone for a little from Column A and a little from Column B when it comes to the overall tone and style of its instrumental composition. We start out in a very heavy, Industrial flavored direction with an undercurrent of Punk and that’s kind of the path that we walk for a lot of the song here honestly. Very dense with thick guitar riffs and pounding drumbeats which does get a bit tiring to the ear after a while if I’m being honest, though they do try to switch things up slightly here and there to mitigate that to a degree. I’m mainly referring to the parts of the song where things mellow a touch to allow the vocals to do a bit of a Rap flow or a more lively Punk sort of style but otherwise we find our theme early and stick to it. Vocally things are pretty decent I suppose, the Rap parts are well executed if not a little bit played out at this point and I did enjoy the heavier Punk slant to the choruses as it made for some catchier moments and that’s kinda what that genre is all about so I think it was a pretty good decision to incorporate it the way that they did on this track. The general distortion applied to everything does sort of get in the way a bit a times for me but it’s obviously a stylistic choice so that’s probably more on me than anything else. Outside of that everything is fairly enjoyable but I wouldn’t really say this would get near the top of any favorite BURST GIRL song list for me. It does everything it sets out to very well but there’s just an element of excitement that I feel is a bit lacking for some reason.

So it would appear that BURST GIRL are in fact taking some of their newly acquired influences and carrying them forward into what at this point is clearly a new direction for the group. The Punk image persists somewhat but it looks like they’re trying to evolve things a bit further away from that and it makes sense given the current line-up and what’s popular when it comes to the underground scene at large right now. Not quite the BURST GIRL that many will have initially fallen in love with but then I suppose it hasn’t really been that for a while now has it?

I’m actually kinda interested to hear what fans of BURST GIRL think of this process that the group appears to be undergoing currently. I’m definitely more of a Punk Rock guy so certain ideas they’ve been experimenting with of late haven’t connected quite so well with me but again it makes sense to try to tap into the current trends of the day. It does leave me feeling a bit conflicted but at the end of the day if it’s what the current members are most passionate about then all the more power to them. They’re still putting out solid material, it’s just a bit…different in some ways I suppose.