[Single] YUI’s ‘Namidairo’

SINGLE REVIEW: YUI- Namidairo

This is another single I’ve long been waiting for. YUI released a live DVD about a month ago which threw off her release schedule. This single will mark the third since her last album, which means that there’s a new album coming soon(ish). Well, I don’t want to wait any longer, YUI’s ‘Namidairo’.

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I absolutely love the musical aspect of Namidairo, because it is similar to old YUI works but with a new sound. The song starts off with nothing but acoustic guitar, and only adds in violin during the intro and chorus. Whining electric guitar also makes a gentle background appearance, which adds a beautiful atmosphere to the ballad. When I first listened to this song, I thought that her vocals sounded a bit dead, but that’s disappeared by now. Her voice sounds a bit deeper, but I can still feel her emotions while singing. YUI isn’t the strongest singer in the world, but she’s a great story teller. Although she doesn’t know how to hold out her notes with vibrato, it’s obvious that she doesn’t have to. Her vocal performance is solid and engaging without all the professionalism. This song is better than YUI’s past two singles by leaps and bounds. Although I liked both previous singles, YUI’s traditional acoustic guitar style is by far my favorite, and she returns to that in this song. Her rock-vibe is fine with me, but I will always have a predilection to her older sound. I’m impressed by YUI’s ability to compose tracks with such great flow, and Namidairo is the perfect example of matching verses and chorus. Yuna Ito could learn a few things from her. This song is exactly what I was looking for, and it will be on repeat for many weeks.

Vocal Performance Grade: A — Musical Performance Grade: A+ — Composition Grade: A+

Overall Grade: A+

The B-Side of this so far fantastic single is a song called I wanna be…. I love the happy intro and continuation of acoustic and natural sounding instrumentation throughout the single. This song reminds me of her really old works because it features nothing but guitar and percussion. Lately YUI has been hopping on the violin train, which is fine, but I’m glad that she doesn’t need them to make a good song. Also, her English is definitely improving, finally. I wanna be doesn’t have a thick accent making it difficult to understand; in fact it sounds very native. It might just be that those words are fairly easy for a Japanese person, but either way YUI’s thankfully using correct English. Overall, this is a very pure track that doesn’t feature much of anything. But in a good way. I like the happiness aspect, and this is definitely a worthy B-Side. People have said it’s boring, but I really don’t think so. It might be void of thick and layered instruments, but it is certainly not boring. The composition is progressive, the vocals are strong, and the guitar chords are sweet. This song is just as good as the previous, and in many ways much more catchy. This song only has one flaw, which is that YUI gets pitchy sometimes, though it’s rare and not all that noticeable if you’re not searching for it.

Vocal Performance Grade: A- — Musical Performance Grade: A+ — Composition Grade: A+

Overall Grade: A+

SINGLE GRADE: A+