Aster

Overall, this album is solid J-Rock. Don't let my criticisms for a few songs here get in the way of that. Towa's voice is strong enough to carry across a lot of the tracks and the instrumentals all around are solid, albeit with some strange instrumental choices like the sax on the opener or the sfx that you hear when samurai are mentioned for half a second in any piece of media on the second. But I think where this album falls apart is when she ventures outside of her lanes.

Anemone is less of an issue in this case as the production from prolific hardcore/metal Vocaloid producer Yuyoyuppe still fits around Towa's voice, but I feel like Towa underdelivers a little and could have had some kind of growls in there somewhere. On its own the instrumental is a fucking banger though and Towa's performance is still nothing to scoff at, but the very clean rock vocals give it way too generic an energy for what it's actually going for.

The tracks that really fall apart are when yet another Hololive producer gets a rhythm game producer to make a pop/rock song for the 50th time in Purple Disease (prod by Cameilla) and Cry Out (prod by t+pazolite). This is the least horrible Cameilla VTuber song, it's maybe a 4 or 5/10, but the t+paz song is a god damn disaster of blown out mix compared to Towa doing her best Ado impression. Please let them stick to rhythm game music oh my god.

The final track I wanted to mention was the closer track, which is an emotional duet between Towa and N̴̢͍̖̪̠̼̱̱̙̘͍̝̦͂̈́̋̋̇̈́͐̓̆͛̎̈̕̚͝ǘ̸̡̯͔̘̝͎͉͈̩̻̾͝n̵̰͋͋̑̔̄̀̃̾̀̌̅̍͝ ̵̛̰̦̐͌͒̌͌̌͋͐̂̋̏̑̀̾̕B̴̡̨̡̺̘̖̝͓͖̬̮͔̪́͒͊̂̑̑̏̽̊̈͒̀͛͐͜͠͝ͅö̶̥̟̪͈͇̺̣͍̱̞̙̝͚͈̪͎̈̈́̽́̚̚͝ͅr̴̢͎̭̤͋̽a̴̡̮͕͉͔̘̫̻̤͋̎̄̓͜͝ Sorry I don't know what happened there, Nekota Tsuna from VSPO. It's a beautiful duet where you can just tell two old friends are pouring everything onto a track together. Nekota's vocals might be a lot weaker in comparison to Towa in her solo sections, possibly needing to be mixed a little higher to compensate, however I think that the two of them complement each other so beautifully while dueting it's just a delight of a track. I think it has the most emotional weight to it out of the whole record and it's a beautiful way to end things off by finally handing Nekota's mic back to her that Towa's been holding on to for over a year now.

Overall, strong j-rock record that can sometimes come off a little bit generic, with a few duds and a REALLY strong closer.