CD Review: April in 85 – WONDER WAVE WALKER

For the band April in 85, named after the birth month and year of the singer and guitarist yuichi abe, it’s Spring all year round. After releasing various singles over the last two years April in 85 came with its very first album: WONDER WAVE WALKER. On this album, you’ll find ten tracks, among which a few which have been released as singles before.

Tracklist:

01. LUCIFERIN
02. WONDER WAVE WALKER
03. DNA
04. 隣室は水槽、泡音しか聞こえない。
05. OCEAN
06. NO ETERNITY UTOPIA
07. BREAKING DAWN
08. REMEMBER
09. GIVE(mizwidth remix)
10. SUNSHINE GLOW

April in 85 exists out of the singer and guitarist yuichi abe (ex-the butterfly nine cord) and is supported by the following band members since 2017: bassist ayumi shiraishi (CUICUI/BAKAYARO NO HI), guitarist daisuke shimizu and drummer hiroyuki adati (HISTGRAM). April in 85 can be called an actual band ever since, as it’s no longer a solo project of the singer and guitarist.

The cover, designed by photographer emo kawaguchi (sentaro) mainly reflects the singer walking on the beach. The theme of beach and water (or rather said an ocean) returns in the album as well. It shows from the titles of OCEAN and WONDER WAVE WALKER, but also because of the sound of the ocean being mixed into various tracks.

The ballad GIVE, originally released in 2016 as an introduction named “greet disc” for the project April in 85, has been remixed with quite some techno influence for the album. This mizwidth remix stands out immediately between all of the other Spring-themed songs from April in 85, since the solid beat that starts immediately. It was a good idea to give GIVE a makeover, since the beat easily lingers in your head and gives you nice Summer vibes.

The track SUNSHINE GLOW was, before it came out under the name of April in 85, a track that yuichi released as a solo artist in 2016 as a one coin CD. Simply put: you pay 500 yen (which is one coin) and you own the CD with the track. Later, the track made an appearance on the first CD released by April in 85 of that same year, just a few months later. You could call it a cover, but if there is a lot of difference between the version yuichi abe released as a solo musician and the one from April in 85 is hard to say without listening to it. Except that you can imagine that the version of April in 85 is a band version which wasn’t exactly a thing for the solo project of yuichi abe.
Enough technical details, back to the album!

The album contains a few instrumental tracks, among which the start of the album, LUCIFERIN, which contains a fragment of an interview with Kurt Cobain in 1993, for the release of Nirvana’s album In Utero at the very end. A very interesting choice to put this in an instrumental track, but especially to start the entire album off like this. NO ETERNITY UTOPIA, on the other hand, is a real intermezzo, a point of peace, before the album rages on with energy.

What does stand out is that all tracks have an English title, except 隣室は水槽、泡音しか聞こえない。 (Rinshitsu wa suisō, awa-on shika kikoenai.), in which the same sentence is repeated over and over while the music finds it’s own way. Freely translated, the story being told is about an aquarium at the neighbours’ house, but that you can only hear bubbles. Furthermore, the tracks on the album contain an interesting mix of Japanese and English, a good example of this is the track DNA which has a catchy chorus in English. Eventually, there are only two tracks in full English, the remix of GIVE and SUNSHINE GLOW.

The album WONDER WAVE WALKER mainly contains upbeat songs who make you feel lighter and form a smile on your face. The spring feeling comes across immediately when you first listen to the CD, but in the end, you’ll be replaying this disc a few times before you put it back in its box. This makes WONDER WAVE WALKER a pleasant and nice growing CD which certainly earns a spot in your CD player when the sun isn’t showing its glowing face for a while. The album is available worldwide through a digital download via Bandcamp and other online channels like Spotify.

Rating: 75/100