Acid Black Cherry (often shortened to ABC) is the solo project of the former vocalist of Janne Da Arc, yasu, who has surprised the visual kei scene quite a bit with his “nerd to glamour” concept with his first release “Spell Magic” and “Black Cherry” shortly after.
With the covers of other artists’ songs under the album name of “Recreation” yasu became quite a famiiar name in the modern visual kei scene, but of course he also writes his own original songs with sounds that go from melodic ballads to rock or even metal-influenced works.
Tracklist:
01. THE RUINER
02. BAD BLOOD
03. BEAST
04. crimson
05. BLACK OUT
06. Sweet dEvil
07. Forbidden Bells
08. RIDE into the FATE
09. KEDAMONO
10. Guilty Cry
“This doesn’t sound like an Acid Black Cherry album!” would probably be everyone’s first reaction about this release. And if you’re familiar with Acid Black Cherry’s work, then yes, I absolutely agree with you. But you do have to keep in mind that normally yasu handles all of the lyrics, composition and arrangement, while for this release other artists have joined in all these sections to create this album. These artists include HIRO (Libraian/La’cryma Christi), SHUSE († я i ¢ k / La’cryma Christi), AKIHIDE (BREAKERZ), Leda (Far East Dizain), Moru Hime Deep, and in addition RYO (defspiral), Norikazu Nagano (everset ex.Missing Tear) and Takeshi Hiramura (everset ex.Missing Tear) (who are both allies from the indies era) are featured in some capacity as well as other artists, but the list would be way too long if I were to list all of those, so definitely recommended to check it out for yourself!
The combination of all these artists makes for a fast-paced album with a lot of rock and metal influence which indeed doesn’t sound like your typical Acid Black Cherry release.
Part of the promotion for this album was the mentioning of a lot of “acid blood” being poured into this album, explained as “excited blood”, which seems to be a good way to describe this massive collaboration.
If you go into this release expecting an Acid Black Cherry album you’re going to be disappointed, but if you go into it with the expectation of a rock/metal-type of album with a unique vocalist who’s voice mixes surprisingly well with the rough instrumentals despite not being the right voice for this type of music, you’ve got a nice album on your hands. The influence of the collaborating artists is clearly audible if you are familiar with their works, but it also has a clear yasu feel over it.
Long story short, there’s too much to say about this album, and you should definitely check it out if you are a fan of A.B.C’s work, but also if you have an interest for any of the collaborating artists.
Rating: 75/100
