Unlucky Morpheus is yet another doujin circle that creates arranges out of the Touhouscene. It’s another group that is widely known and consists of two major persons, yuki and fuki. Yukimura Hirano is a very talented guitarist and has been featured on a lot of magazines, aswell as on a large amount of album. He is currently member of four circles as far as I know. First, Unlucky Morpheus (even though Denshirenji Takeshi has more or less taken over), then Icarus’cry (where Denshirenji is the vocalist), UNDEAD CORPORATION and another one starring Setsuna from Black Night Funeral (forgive me, I forget the name). Fuyuki Tenge however is just a member of Unlucky Morpheus albeit she’s featured in some other albums of other circles.
Unlucky Morpheus dates back to 2008 and quickly grew to fame with their very cliche power/speedmetal sound and fuki’s powerful voice. However, I believe what really blew Unlucky Morpheus fame through the roof was their second album, REBIRTH. The album featured tracks like 木葉天狗, 奇子 ～ Unknown Child, 断罪は遍く人間の元に and Missing Girl and Unlucky Morpheus quickly grew from that. fuki at this stage did have a lot more power in her voice than she do has today though, and I really liked her more from the past. Especially without Denshirenji messing up the tracks. His voice cracks me up. Seriously. :l
Straight out from (compton) M3-23, together with their release of REBIRTH they released yet another album titled So That A Star Shines At Night Sky, an album featuring arranges not from the Touhou scene but from an anime called Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien (Rumbling Hearts). This show was a big hit within the animescene however this album is really overlooked for some reason and I do not understand why. This is Unlucky Morpheus and a great animes soundtrack combined, what could possibly go wrong? Well, I’m here to give you the answer.
So That A Star Shines At Night Sky (god, long name that is tedious to write) is yet another powermetal album from Unlucky Morpheus, however much more melodic and much easier to listen to than their previous work (and from REBIRTH aswell). And for some reason, the mastering aswell as the overall sound of the album differs extremely from their original sound, probably to give it a more “realistic” feel seeing how the show the tracks originates from is a very realistic one aswell. However, I do must say I feel that this album has been given a lot of care, thought and hard work on. Unlucky Morpheus tracks in general seems a little bit rushed, even though some of them are very original (yet very generic in sound) and are not being given the full potential they could have brought. This album though makes up for that, and I’d love to hear more of this kind of Unlucky Morpheus.
The first major flow would be the introduction track, titled “So That A Star Shines at Night Sky( Instrumental )”. This track has nothing to do with the Rumbling Hearts franchise, nor is it any good neither for the albums nor the ears. This is just a bad filler in the album which acts like an opening, but is not. It’s boring, fast and very short. However, as soon as this shit ends, we are introduced with the REAL opening of the album, and guess what? It’s an arrange of the opening for the show itself. Wouldn’t this be a bit more appropriate to put as an opener for the album? Oh well, whatever. From this track alone, the entire sound is displayed to you. The entire album sounds like this. It’s speedy, melodic and kind of catchy. However, the guitar work is not displayed very well in this track. In general, the riffs are a very solid addition to the overall sound of the track and sets a great atmosphere. However, I do must say that the first REAL track on the album (which is Rumbling Hearts) is kind of neglectable. It is however quite powerful and fuki is doing a fantastic job on the vocals using a higher pitch than usual (I guess she let her vibrato she’s so proud of aside to make this kind of vocals instead which I DON’T REALLY MIND!). This is a great voice, powerful and it sounds amazing. A fuki I definitely would like to hear more of. The overall sound of the album seems well thought out, sounds great to the ear, not too convoluted nor too little going on. However, in the end some of the tracks get too repetitive after awhile which is actually UM’s major flaw. Rumbling Hearts, Next Season and Blue Tears (which has an AMAZING intro though) all gets very repetitive and boring after awhile. However, the two golden tracks (which ironically is in hiragana/kanji, 風のゆくえ (Where the wind blows) and 星空のワルツ (Waltz under the starry sky) are without doubt the two best tracks on the album, aswell as the top tiers of UM’s songs in general. These two tracks shows without doubt what Fuyuki is capable of, and not that “low” pitch vibrato style she so much likes to use (and to be honest, it does even sound crappy at times). I do not however say that she’s a bad vocalist, no no. She’s very good, but to say talented is not what I was meaning, nor ever will say about Fuyuki.
So That A Star Shines At Night Sky is a good album. It can get repetitive if you listen to it with scramble on, however two tracks very well placed on the list makes up for this giving you room to “breathe” after the slightly generic sound of power/speedmetal and the repetitive beats/riffs (though 風のゆくえ is speedy aswell, Fuyuki’s voice is amazing and she’s doing a great job to the track. I’d say her voice makes at least half the song here). However, the album in general is slightly boring due to the fact that most of the tracks is fast-paced ones with some lesser breaks in the middle (or every here and there) and neglectable guitar for the most parts. Drums are extremely repetitive and there’s not many highlights in general. It’s like winegums. Tastes good for the first part but damn, it becomes boring and not so good after awhile. But hey, it’s well done despite of that. 6/10
Firmament's Trench 