Album Review: moumoon - moumoon

I’ve been waiting for so long for this. When ‘more than love’ came out, their full length album was announced and I was going to write something on ‘more than love’ purely because it’s just a sensational single flooding with emotion (I mean, the title gives it away…) but I decided after knowing that they were going to release their debut full-length album in a few weeks to wait for it and then review it.

Moumoon, which consists of lead vocalist YUKA and Masaki Kousuke (guitars, keyboard, piano, programming, chorus) have released their first full-length album on the 12th of November. I first found the duo back in 2005, a year after Do As Infinity broke up which funnily enough they also opened for Do As Infinity for their free live in Yoyogi Park on the 30th of September.

They have only released mini-albums and singles before this and I’ve always wondered during my time listening to them when they would release something bigger. I’m sure they wanted to take it slow before they start making bigger jumps and with all these small steps they would slowly refine into a band capable of standing out of the crowd. Given, the mini-albums consisted of a few AWESOME songs, but the others failed to give me an impression of a consistent duo which could consistently produce awesome songs all the time.

Moumoon have created an album a jam-packed album filling it with past songs from their mini-albums, singles as well as album songs. The variety of songs follow extremely closely to their ballad roots from their past releases which at first glance, was a bit tiresome since I wanted something loud and dynamic. I was hoping their album songs were as memorable as their singles (I remember you, Tiny Star, more than love), unfortunately as “most” album songs do, they were songs which I passed as just unremarkable when compared to their singles. But, there are a few gems such as the ‘myself’ and ‘Sunrise’.



I think the main reason this album let me down was because of the lack of lively songs such as ‘Do you remember’ and ‘PINKY RING’. I couldn’t enjoy the album songs as much as I did with the singles. Instead, I spent more energy trying to understand the focus of the song. Don’t get me wrong, I respect them for creating something unique, but none have the same flavour and the vibe as some of singles, especially ‘more than love’.

What really got me into moumoon wasn’t because of how beautiful the ballads were, but how the vocalist, YUKA, sung in English. I know it’s weird to be interested in a Japanese band where your main focus is the vocalisation of English words but with a combination of YUKA’s ethereal voice and her accented English, it’s like instead of me getting Mai out of the closet, she comes out herself. I’ve grown accustom to listening to vocalists singing in choppy or slurred yet understandable English. But hell, it’s a great change to actually hear a vocalist who can pronounce it and sing it beautifully. YUKA has an undeniable unique accent when singing in English. Her voice stays fluent during the transition from English and Japanese lyrics, unlike others who try to force it out like they’re choking on words. The second to last line of ‘more than love’ is a beautiful example of her fluent and elegant transition from Japanese to English.



Masaki does more than just paint the atmosphere with his creativity; his understanding of individual atmospheres and his ability to mix and match makes every single song sound different from any other and with this understanding he provides an atmosphere which YUKA can work within it, rather than being lost and working around the atmosphere or worse, against the given atmosphere. Like for ‘Sunrise’, it starts with an ethereal, choir like ambience until the drums kick in giving it a whole new contemporary feeling but the violins maintain the cathedral-like feeling. ‘Do you remember?’ is just like sunrise. It gives you a sense of calmness until that guitar riff rips open the introduction. The combination of a ballad with the strength electric guitar provides a sense of fullness while balanced with the calmness of a ballad.

While moumoon have created sublime singles such as ‘Tiny Star’, ‘I remember you’ and ‘more than love’, they’ve fell short in creating an album an album which is full and memorable. Given, that this self-titled album was released a few weeks after ‘more than love’ so I’m pretty suspicious if this was rushed or if these tracks were already made before. But while it isn’t memorable, YUKA and Masaki both have undeniable talent in the fields. Hopefully both of them will enlighten their audience with fuller releases which can achieve the same essence as their previous singles.

Enough to make my ears moan for more?

Probably not. Although, if my ears had a cock, it would be tingling at the sensation that moumoon are only going to get better.