With his tenth album, the divinely-titled TEN, T.M.Revolution serves up a mix of energetic, dreamy and danceable songs that's certain to give any pop-rock fan their money's worth.
T.M.Revolution, better known as Nishikawa Takanori of abingdon boys school, released his tenth studio album TEN in Japan on May 13th, 2015. A week later, German label Gan-Shin Records released a CD version throughout Europe. The German edition is identical to the Japanese regular edition.
The album starts with the strong intro The ether. At the very beginning, you can only hear the bassline and drums before one by one, a bright uplifting synthesizer melody materializes, replacing the bass. Next is the energetic DOUBLE-DEAL, a song that’s hard to describe. What you can say for sure is that the track possesses a certain dramatic flair, thanks to several changes in tempo, vocals and instrumentation. The lighter AMAKAZE sets a more peaceful tone, although that doesn’t mean the song is slow, calm or sedate at any point – the base tempo is much too high, and some muscular rock guitar enters towards the end.
Similar in style is the fast-paced Tsukiyabureru -Time to SMASH!, the opening track of "Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers", dominated by a weird synthesizer melody. Thread of fate, which was featured in the same series, is the complete contrary. It sounds tidier and livelier, with the electric instruments striking a softer tone alongside the backing choir. HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS ~Get the Power~ arouses feelings of threat within the main body of the song, due to strong instrumentation and a scattering of distorted voices. However, the chorus breaks with this, presenting itself as a bit more relaxed.
The danceable Summer Blizzard marks another enjoyable change in style. From the very beginning, you’re bombarded with full-on techno sounds. The subsequent Salvage features a melody that varies from dreamy and ballad-like to dramatic. Synthesizer are used here once more, but Nishikawa's vocals are more prominent than before, and he demonstrates his impressive vocal range.
Dream Crusader can be described as a rock ballad, drawing the listener in with much emotion and well-balanced instruments. The next song, the ballad-like Phantom Pain, stands out due to its cembalo-like melody and strings. In CRIMSON AIR, we find a catchy mid-tempo rock number with an acoustic touch and some interesting vocal and synthesizer parts.
The songs Count ZERO, FLAGS and The party must go on all have one thing in common: all were featured in Capcom’s "Sengoku BASARA". Count ZERO features an up-tempo synthesizer melody which slows down just before the chorus. The speedy FLAGS surprises with flourishes of shakuhachi and koto, adding a traditional Japanese touch to the track. Packed with dance and rave music elements, The party must go on makes for another fast, danceable experience.
The last original song on TEN is The edge of Heaven & Revolution. Compared to what’s gone before, this one’s more relaxed and because of its arrangement, invites you to linger and dream on. Finally, there are the “reboot” versions of Tsukiyabureru -Time to SMASH! and Thread of fate. The first of these hasn't lost its tempo, but because of the unobtrusive retro synth melody, the song is no longer so weird or chaotic. In contrast, due to a new arrangement, Thread of fate sounds almost completely different, somehow managing to sound even older than before.
T.M.Revolution's TEN deserves to be listened at least twice: the first time to acclimatise yourself to the constantly changing musical styles, and the second time to catch all the subtleties. Those amongst you who like pop-rock are sure to your money's worth. After all, TEN unites energetic, dreamy and danceable songs.
