My thoughts on “STRESS-FREE STYLE (feat. DAIDAI)”, one of several recent digital singles from miscast.

Release Date: April 11th 2021

Tracklist

1. STRESS-FREE STYLE (feat. DAIDAI)

When it comes to digital releases from Idol groups things always seem to fall into one of two categories. A group will either just release a single, EP, album, whatever and throw a digital version up on various streaming portals as additional promotion…or they’ll go crazy releasing a full album worth of songs one at a time over the course of a month or two making it really difficult/tiring to keep up with. That’s how I usually end up feeling about that sort of approach anyway, though I know there are people who do enjoy the constant stream of content approach too.

If we’re going with multiple single track releases I prefer the short burst approach where a group will put out maybe 3 or 4 tracks over the course of a similar number of months. Easy to keep up with, you can appreciate everything fully and all that jazz. That’s typically what miscast do when it comes to this sort of thing though this go around they do seem to be releasing at a slightly quicker rate than usual, though all of the track from their new 3 track run have been heavily previewed over the last several months so we knew they were coming at some point and already had some idea of what to expect.

The second track in the series sees the group collaborate with Paledusk guitarist DAIDAI for “STRESS-FREE STYLE” which aims to help people “blow away stress” so that’s a pretty nice, positive message right there. Not totally sure how a group famed for their intense instrumentation and harsh vocals are going to achieve this but I suppose that’s going to be part of the fun here, right? I can’t say that I’m overly familiar with Paledusk or what DAIDAI typically produces but miscast always bring something interesting to the table with these collaborations so I’m sure we’re going to be in for a good listening experience either way here, I hope!

So I wasn’t totally sure what to make of “STRESS-FREE STYLE” when I first started listening to the track. The opening instrumental is this very unconventional mix of the more typical miscast Hardcore style guitars, drums and what have you but then there’s this sort of happy sounding, energetic Chiptune-esque synthesizer going on in the midst of all of this as well. I wasn’t really sure if it was supposed to be aggressive or happy-go-lucky initially. Things get cleared up a little bit with the introduction of the vocals, starting out initially with a decent enough Rap flow before they too took on this very energetic, happy tone so I suppose this chaotic contrast of styles really is what they’re going for on this one. Lots of vocoding going on here too, at times verging on far too much in my opinion, and we also get to hear a bit from DAIDAI too which added a bit of variety into the mix even if male vocals probably aren’t what some people are looking for in their Idol music.

I mentioned contrasts earlier and the song does indeed have a much harder, darker edge to it at times which is introduced mainly in the form of several pretty brutal sounding breakdowns that are featured throughout the track. Here you get the more typical crunching guitars, blast-beats and what have you out of the instrumental. You also get some pretty powerful harsh vocals from the miscast girls and some…harsh rapping I guess(?) from DAIDAI which isn’t something I personally hear everyday so I thought it added a pretty cool dynamic to the track personally. Certainly a lot going on here so it was a bit hard to take in initially, but once I got a feel for the flow of the track I found myself enjoying it quite a bit and I definitely appreciate the fact that they did try to do something a bit different here.

So that’ll be another pretty successful collaboration out of miscast here then. I said it in one of my previous reviews of theirs but I really do think that this sort of thing opens up a lot of new possibilities as far as Idol music goes and even though a lot of these types of people are “collaborating” with Idol groups already as producers or what have you, there’s something about making it more official and bringing them more into the track itself that I find quite interesting as a listener. Probably not the most popular of opinions though I’m sure!

Well, that’s 2 for 2 on this current run of collabs from miscast as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully they’ll be able to do the clean sweep with the third and final track in this run of new material, and given what I’ve heard so far I think there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be able to do just that. It should be coming up on the site here fairly shortly so check back soon and see what I thought. I certainly can’t wait to take a listen, that’s for sure.