Review from visual-keios.com:
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Kairu is a visual kei artist from the West Coast of the United States. While some fans of this scene are skeptical of non-Japanese artists, he is one of many striving to break down this wall. His first mini-album, titled Obscene American Magazine, is being released on May 23rd. I was lucky enough to be given an early glimpse, and here’s what I thought.
“Eclipse XII”: This opening song has a slightly creepy feel that is completely different than the vibe of the other songs. In a strange way, while being different, it works very well as an opener for Obscene American Magazine.
“Obscene American Magazine”: The second song of Kairu’s mini-album starts off with an interesting drum section. Kairu’s voice is raw and deep here. This is paired well with the heavy music that he tends to play. The lyrics are quite catchy, while still conveying a message. At around 1:47 the feel of the song changes, as does the Kairu’s voice. It is an interesting mix-up and it gets even more interesting around 2:16. This part, ending at 3:07, is more of a heartfelt section of the song that really just grabs your attention. Then, at 3:08, it transitions back into an instrumental section where Kairu shows you his skills with a guitar. It is very reminiscent of Sugizo’s work.
“Icarus”: Nice instrumental work goes on in this song and it has a great beat. Kairu’s range is really shown off in this song, along with his musical skill. His voice in this song is just amazing as is his guitar work. This song is broken up into little sections; the chorus, a part where he is talking underneath the music, the verses, and the instrumental sections. With its diversity, it is not a surprise that this is tied as my favorite song from his mini-album.
“Letter to Editor”: A heavy song with deep lyrics is the second to last song on this mini-album. Kairu’s growls in this song are pure awesomeness and will make any fan of metal very happy. There’s a heavy usage of drums in this song that works very well to create a heavy rock feel for this song. Overall, a fun song to sing along to, and just jam out to, Letter to Editor delivers. This would be an amazing song to see live, and I could definitely see concertgoers, and myself, moshing to this song.
“Re”: This is the reply song to “Letter to Editor”. It’s one of the lighter songs on this album. This song shows off Kairu’s guitars skills the most out of the songs on this album. Kairu’s voice is more in the tenor range in this song and less raw than it was in the prior songs. I think this really helps to complete the feel of this song. Once again the instrumental sections are reminiscent of Sugizo’s work, which isn’t a surprise as Kairu is a fan of X Japan. This song, with all of its emotions, is my other favorite from this album.
Overall, I loved this mini-album and the only downside was that sometimes it was difficult to understand the lyrics that Kairu was singing. However, seeing as he is a visual kei artist and this is often the case, it’s not something that will truly affect his success. I give this album a 4/5 and wish Kairu the best of luck in his future endeavors in music.
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