Review: Dragon Ash - crush the window

Released: June 1, 2005

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Artist: Dragon Ash

Other songs you might enjoy: Life goes on - Dragon Ash Natsu no Omoide - Ketsumeishi Kirikirimai - ORANGE RANGE

"crush the window" is Dragon Ash's first single in almost a year, and it sounds very much the same as ever. This may delight some hardcore fans, but overall it comes off as a fairly disspointing release.

The title track, "crush the window," starts off sounding almost exactly like Dragon Ash's other tracks, with turntable scratching and semi-random guitar. As this hip-hop/alt-rock track progresses, it increases in intensity, but never becomes truly exciting. The lyrics are of course a mix of Japanese and Kj's confused English; as you can tell from the title of the song, some of his phrasing is quite awkward. Kj is talented at rapping, but his raspy voice doesn't have the same soft emotion when he raps as when he sings more melodically. The saving grace of this song is the stylish guitar riff, which manages to make this run-of-the-mill track turn into quite an addictive number.

The next track, "resound feat. HIDE, 136" is the worst song on the CD. Starting off with more random scratching and guitar, this rap/rock song is just too repetitive. The repetition makes this song hard to listen to all the way through, not to mention multiple times. This song invokes a Rage Against the Machines sound, making it feel almost like a copy, and less interesting overall.

The last track, "solider," is by far the most interesting and original. Instead of the usual DJ scratches and whatnot, this song actually samples from what sounds like squeaking sneakers, walking, and some sort of an odd crunching noise, all lead by a pretty flamingo style accoustic guitar riff. The effect is hard to explain, but it almost sounds like someone is melodically playing basketball. The indescribable crunching noise is a little annoying, but it is subtle enough to not spoil the song. Instead of rapping, Kj sings this calm, simple song, and he sounds great. His singing voice is actually quite clear and emotional. Unfortunately, this is the shortest song on the track, so my enjoyment of this release is short but sweet.

All in all, this is a decent single, but I hope that in the future Dragon Ash will try to create new classics instead of only recreating their old ones.