Perfume - Relax In The City / Pick Me Up

A new single from the continually excellent Perfume girls is always cause for celebration, and this week saw their latest hit UK shores. And what's more, you get two for the price of one this time!

The first of the tracks - Relax In The City - is pretty gentle fare by Perfume's recent standards, though perhaps that could have been to expected from the title. Between playful, nursery rhyme-like melodies, the track feels pretty interchangeable with a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu album cut - charming, certainly, but you came here for the all-out party bangers, didn't you?

It's on Pick Me Up that we get to the real meat of the package here though - it's by far and away the better of the two songs, flipping between delicately rural acoustic elements and a chorus that fizzes away like a firework mainlining on Pro Plus. The song feels like a natural continuation on from the likes of Spending All My Time, and already feels like a future live-favourite. Top marks on this one, girls.

The double A-side single also comes backed with the track Toumei Ningen (Invisible Man) thrown in for good measure - the song seeing the Perfume girls taking up a sleeker synth sound before exploding into the hi-energy EDM-fest that comprised much of their Level 3 album; arpeggiated synth lines practically dripping off a mix of layered, sultry harmonies. Definitely not among their best tracks, but competent nonetheless.

Relax In The City / Pick Me Up is available on UK iTunes now via Universal J. The tracks are also available to stream on Spotify.

Mashiro Ayano - Vanilla Sky (Gunslinger Stratos OP)

Following hot on the heels of her fantastic Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works OP theme Ideal White, singer Mashiro Ayano is riding high on the back of this season's Gunslinger Stratos, with the OP theme Vanilla Sky getting an official UK release.

While I don't think the track is as good as Ideal White, I'll always offer praise for an act actually being able to get an OP theme out in the UK while the show is still airing in Japan. This is how it should be, instead of fans being forced to listen to rubbish, sped-up streams on YouTube or Soundcloud.

Packing the same punchy pop-rock pulse as Ideal White did, Mashiro Ayano's latest effort is typical action OP fodder - a heady blend of beats, guitars and euphoric strings combining to deliver the kind of giddy energy fans of the likes of Eir Aoi will lap up.

The track comes backed with b-sides Turn To You, Gentou and the instrumental version of Vanilla Sky. I'd argue that the b-sides actually have somewhat more charm to them than the lead track, dressing themselves up in sparklingly retro-synths. Turn To You in particular sounds like it could have accompanied a Gundam OP back in the mid 90s.

Vanilla Sky is available to download on iTunes now, via Ariola Japan. (It's also worth checking out Ariola Japan's entire repertoire on Amazon, via this handy link)

Sawano Hiroyuki - X.U (Seraph of the End OP)

This guy just keeps knocking it out of the park, doesn't he? Fresh from his mindblowingly good soundtrack for glossy mecha action show Aldnoah Zero, Sawano Hiroyuki has come up with the goods once again for Studio Wit's vampire thriller Seraph of the End.

I was a fan of the original manga version of Seraph from the start - following it chapter by chapter in the digital version of Shonen Jump, and so far the anime adaption is exceeding my expectations with its gorgeous, painterly backdrops and surprisingly fluid animation for what could have easily been another lazy Shonen workout.

I've always admired Hiroyuki-san's ability to not only pen fantastic, tension-raising traditional soundtrack moments, but actual 'songs' - the kind of stuff that actually helm up a show itself and become a trailblazer for its themes and tone. While you could argue that elements of his composition have a tendency to become quite samey (X.U certainly shares considerable DNA with Aldnoah Zero track No Differences) in many ways it suceeds precisely because of that. Like the best pop music, Hiroyuki's most memorable moments are the ones that offer up the cleanest, loudest choruses - those nuggets of melody that have you reaching to up the volume each time the theme plays out.

Elsewhere in the Seraph soundtrack, we hear more of Hiroyuki's usual playbook - the grandoise strings and horns put to such good use in Attack on Titan and Kill La Kill. But, for me, most interestingly, we also get new elements - dissonant post-punk chords, and reverb-heavy guitar lines reminiscent of The Cure. Deliciously apt, given the show's gothic aesthetic.

Suffice to say, I'd bend over backward for a proper UK release of both the Seraph and Aldnoah Zero soundtracks in the UK. Anime Ltd's did a fantastic job on Hiroyuki's Attack on Titan soundtrack - securing both a digital and physical edition.

With Anime Ltd also responsible for bringing Seraph to streaming service Viewster this season, I've certainly got all my fingers crossed that they can somehow do something with the soundtrack too...