L'Arc~en~Ciel Album: “Ray [Japan]”

"ray" is a collection of 11 rock songs. A few songs break the mold but this is L'Arc~en~Ciel's "rock" album, comrpised almost entirely of basic guitars/drums/bass. It manages to stay fresh, and the album doesn't sound entirely like a blur by the time you reach the end. But in comparison with other L'Arc albums it's clearly much more "stable".

Many new fans may find this one of the easiest albums to get into because the songs are all fairly accessible. I'd recommend this with "ark" for new fans, even though these are my least favorite albums of the band.

The bright spots of the album:

"HONEY" - the big single penned by hyde. Catchy as hell and rockin'.

"snow drop" - tetsu's answer to "HONEY". I like it even more. Has sort of a U2-ish feel to it but is distinctly L'Arc.

"shinshoku -lose control-" - A dynamic songs of quiet verses and heavy choruses. The choruses reach an aggressiveness unparalleled in the rest of their library. And yet it's a great song throughout.

"ibara no namida" - Another hyde song, once again with very prominent choruses. This is an EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT live song and I highly suggest you pick up GRAND CROSS CONCLUSION or REALIVE to see it (each performance is spectacular).

"the silver shining" - A gorgeous song, by ken. Features a lot of synthesizers, lots of falsetto, and lots of whispering tetsu background vocals. I love it.

The rest of the album is mostly made up of mediocre songs - "shi no hai", "It's the end", "Sell my Soul"... all fine songs, but aren't extremely great. "kasou" is a fan favorite, and I like it but not as much as the above 5 songs.

I find yukihiro's 2 compositions the worst of the bunch, and perhaps the worst 2 songs they've ever let onto an album. "L'heure" is a mindless, repetitive beat that does nothing to aid the album in anyway. Entirely useless, even as an intermission. "trick" is another repetitive song that sounds like a broken record about halfway through it. Easily the most overrated Laruku song ever.

Never heard L'Arc? Snatch up this album along with "ark" and you'll get a pretty good idea of the band's sound. This definitely isn't the strongest in their collection, but that's to be expected. Imagine if ray and ark had been just one album though; it would've been amazing. But they stretched themselves and went for the double album release, and managed to pump out two pretty good albums. They just don't match the rest.