Anamanaguchi's Dawn Metropolis Review

Note: Yeah, I know this album is about a year old, but it's new to me. Additionally, it's not like any of you have heard of it until now anyway.

Chiptune is a genre of music that takes advantage of the beeps and boops that can be created through classic video game consoles. Anamanaguchi is one of such bands, and their newest album is available in iTunes.

Anamanaguchi is easily separated from other chiptune bands in a few ways. First, and most apparent, is their fast, loud, and rockish style. Secondly, they aren't purely chiptune, but a hybrid between chiptune and "normal" music, being about 75% NES sounds and 25% guitars and even live drums on a few tracks.

Their newest album, Dawn Metropolis clocks in at an extremely short 27 minutes, about half of an average album. For an album of this length to succeed, it needs to not waste one minute. The solution that Anamanaguchi comes up with is to start with a bang with the track "Blackout City," which is a no nonsense, push of forward motion.

This energy doesn't drop for the next few tracks, until "Danger Mountain." This track is the weakest bit of the album, due to the lack of any real melody, making 3 minutes of noise. Luckily, things pick up with the next two tracks, "Overarrow" and "Tempest, Teamwork, Triumph (At Sea.)"

The last and final track is a tonal as well as instrumental shift. The eight minute epic "Mermaid" ditches the softer, more tonal sounds of a Nintendo for the sharper and edgier sound of the original Game Boy. By far the darkest bit of this album, "Mermaid" is a great ending for the LP, leaving the listener with dissonance that slowly fades into nothingness.

Dawn Metropolis becomes an overall success despite some momentum loss in "Danger Mountain." Unfortunately, with only 27 minutes that loss of momentum is a bigger deal than it would have been on a longer album.

Dawn Metropolis gets 4 hacked Nintendos outta five.