traveling!

We are back in England now but tomorrow I have to turn around and fly to Georgia. Ugh, I am going to be so tired after that. And then the class I am going to Georgia for starts on Monday morning. I am so going to fall asleep during it that first day.

Oh, I hope Evan got my email about what time I arrive. That would suck if I get in and have no ride to hotel...

Hawks

We went to the Softbank Hawks first 3 games of the season and its surprising just how much of your day a baseball game can take up. At least it was fun and they won 2 of those 3 games.

Game one. #21 Wada pitched the whole game allowing no runs. The hawks batting was on fire, scoring eight runs to the Buffaloes' zero. Five of those RBIs were provided by #3 Matsunaka. Unfortunately #5 Matsuda broke his wrist (I think) in the first or second inning. He was replaced with #32 Morimoto for the rest of the series.

Game two. The Hawks pitching and batting sucked in this game, though #9 Kokubo did have a pretty nice solo home run.

Game three. Sugiuchi, #47 pitched a good game, allowing only 1 run but the Hawks weren't giving him much help. Matsunaka hit a solo home run half an ending after the Buffaloes' first run. Honda, #46, won the game for the hawks with a double in the bottom of the tenth inning, driving #30, Hasegawa home. Hasegawa had an impressive streak this 3 game series with a batting average of .600ish. He had no RBIs though, mostly due to his being surrounded by the team's worst hitters in the batting line up.

球体

球体 Instrumental
水恩 from 志恩 is a better album intro.

咆哮
This is a good aggressive song and I like the chorus, but the obvious influence from ToC is almost painful.

アゲハ
The first dozen times I heard this song, it was almost lost on me. The transition between verse and chorus grated on my nerves but now I like it.

ハイドアンドシーク
This song, along with the last two show more metal influence than the last few albums. Thankfully none of it is the Korn type crappy influences that they use to exhibit. The backing vocals make the song for me.

陽炎
Here we have a slower and more serious song. Its respectable but unlikely to ever be a favorite of mine.

レミング
This sounds like a cross between X and the typical ムック happy punky song. The pre-chorus in between the first and second verses and the breakdown before the guitar solo are both pretty awesome.

オズ
Combine アンジャベル or ファズ and シヴァ from 志恩, add a little bit of growling here and there and this is the song you'd get.

浮遊
Once again, the pace lets up a bit and gets funky at the same time. The guitar playing though out the song is fun to listen to. This is probably my favorite non-single track.

讃美歌
I don't mind that they borrowed from Ave Maria at all, but the chanting of "Santa Maria" towards the end bugs me enough to call this my least favorite song on the album. Also, the vocal line in places sounds too much like "generic ムック melody #4" or something.

空と糸
I loved this song the first time I heard it and I still love it the 30th time I've heard it. I also like the guitar solo, mostly because I have a weakness for guitar tapping, as ミヤ adequately does at the start of the solo.

hanabi
It starts off with 逹瑯 singing A Capella before a piano and then a few chords on acoustic guitar pop up. Slowly strings and the rest of the band come in. Then things take a turn for the Rock. Pretty nifty song to end the album with.


Over it is all pretty nice album.