Beyond the Sea

SINGLE REVIEW
Anna Tsuchiya - cocoon

1. cocoon
2. u
3. Guys

This is Anna Tsuchiya’s 7th single and it was released on January 30, 2008. This single reached #19 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and it sold 4,527 copies in its first week.

After making a little bit of pop music with her last single BUBBLE TRIP / sweet sweet song, Anna Tsuchiya makes a triumphant return to rock with cocoon. Despite being a medium tempo song, the riffs are pretty aggressive and seem to be grunge inspired. Like many of her older songs, the lyrics are very bilingual and contain more English than Japanese. I liked the catchiness of the verses because of Tsuchiya’s interesting word choice and her rhyming of them.

The first B-side, u, is more upbeat and has a punkish sound that’s mixed with industrial styled synth. It’s also entirely in English. The riffs that appear later on are simple but they are quite consistent and have good pace. Tsuchiya’s vocals are stronger in this song too, especially in the chorus.

The next track is only available on the CD only edition of the single. Guys is an awesome song with great lyrics than have an attitude to them. Out of all the songs on the single, this one has the most complex arrangement. The music is more acoustic based and I liked the parts of the song where the tempo slowed down and then quickly sped up again to match Tsuchiya’s changing vocals. This song is also in English.

Overall Rating

3½ stars