The Japanese House, Good At Falling - album review
Dreamy pop is the order of the day on this - the first LP from Buckinghamshire's Amber Bain, AKA The Japanese House.
She has long associated herself with and taken inspiration from The 1975 - using some of their production team on this album and touring with them in the past. The connection is blindingly obvious. Fans of the 2019 BRIT Award-winners should be well at home here. While this album lacks some of the pumping pop power that Matt Healy and the lads can concoct, the devilishly understated craftsmanship is recognisable.
She has dropped four EPs before this, and fans have been waiting a long time to hear something lengthier from her. Perhaps this goes too far the other way though, and at times we are left feeling cut adrift rather than fully on-board.
Soft, almost polite electro percussion dominates, while punchy and slightly off-kilter bass powers the tracks from underneath like that mischievous kid in class who has the ability to disrupt but the threat of a final warning is just about keeping them in check.
TJH's vocals are light and breezy. Think Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell, Metric's Emily Haines or Ladyhawke. Her style fits lovingly with the music around her, like two young lovers strolling.
Follow My Girl is one of these uplifting anthems with layered keys and guitars that zing and collide around each other. TJH never forces her vocals, everything is so effortlessly smooth.
Maybe You're The Reason follows suit. A funkier chorus brings in that bass we mentioned earlier. It's like a late night dance through the streets with a few shandies nestling in the stomach.
Her single Lilo slows things down a bit. Those velvety, rising melodies are replaced by a stripped back and haunting aura which makes TJH come across as hauntingly trapped.
A lack of progression throughout stops things being truly gripping. At 12 tracks long it is a hefty time to be left drifting with these lazy weekend morning vibes. Perhaps a discovery of something bouncier wouldn't go amiss.
Until then, we are sometimes left groggily drifting like the music she provides.
Rating: 6/10
The Japanese House will play Birmingham'sm O2 Institute on November 24
