My thoughts on “Saisei”, the latest digital offering from RILISREVERSE.

Release Date: June 25th 2021

Tracklist

1. Saisei

Development and growth is something that I personally quite enjoy seeing unfold for an Idol group, as at least for me the journey of supporting a project from “nothing” as it were and seeing it become “something” is a pretty cool thing. I know a lot of other people might expect every group to be this super polished, professional outfit right from day 0 but I’ve never really thought of it like that personally. I think you miss out on a lot of the fan experience otherwise but maybe that’s just me.

RILISREVERSE are a group that have been doing their thing for right around a year or so at this point I believe. They were sort of born out of the ashes of HAMIDASYSTEM in a lot of ways but I don’t really want to overstate that as it was never actually said that they were some kind of successor or anything like that. Having the same producer does make for some unfortunately easy comparisons though but the group has been slowly working towards figuring out its own sound and identity and it has been going pretty well so far.

I’m hoping to hear more of that sort of progression on the group’s latest digital single “Saisei” too. Not quite the longer form release that I was hoping for personally but you’d imagine that something like that will be coming along here before too long. That’s not the focus of today though, I’m about to take a listen to this new track and see what it’s all about. Hopefully it’ll be another cool take on Electronica or something along those lines, RILISREVERSE are pretty good at that sort of thing after all.

Well, the opening instrumental to “Saisei” is certainly full of personality that much is for sure. The rhythm takes quite a bit of getting used to as it isn’t really following any of the traditional composition laws, but after a while it did click with me and I cane to appreciate most of its quirks and intricacies. The hipsterish Indie Rock vibe that ended up being a biproduct of some of the stuff going on also helped give the brain something a bit more familiar to latch onto in my case. The vocals then have the unenviable job of competing for your ears’ attention and give the very “normal” tone and flow to their delivery makes said job all the more difficult. Don’t get me wrong, very nice and melodic stuff going on in the verses and some catchy lyrics too which doesn’t hurt but the energy is just so different that once again feels a little bit off initially but kinda gets there in a roundabout way eventually.

Choruses almost take on this Post Rock identity with very blown out, bright guitars and soaring vocal harmonies being the key features and it somehow fits with everything else quite well actually. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more progression as we move through the track but given how everything that was already going felt like it was a moment away from spinning apart perhaps it’s for the best that they kept it relatively simple in that regard. It took a bit but I ended up having a pretty good time with this one when all was said and done.

Well, I think it’s safe to say that “Saisei” isn’t going to appeal to everyone but I think most people should at least give it a listen or two just to hear what RILISREVERSE have come up with here. It’s colorful, quite emotional at times and you’re probably going to hear a thing or two that you might not have before. It’s hard to come up with totally new ideas in the Idol-sphere but man if RILISREVERSE didn’t try to color outside the lines a bit with this one.

I think I did get a bit of that growth and progression that I had hoped for from both RILISREVERSE and their musical style on this release. A year is a long time in Idol but it also kinda isn’t at the same time depending on what context you’re viewing things from. While not quite the finished article just yet, in my opinion at least, I think it’s pretty safe to say that RILISREVERSE have had a great first year and that their second one already appears to be off to a very bright…or should I say interesting start. Watch this space folks.