Weekly Album - Week of 08/13 - 08/19 - Stereotype A

Before the review starts I would just like to apologize for getting it out late. Enjoy

This week I listened to Stereotype A by Cibo Matto. I was quite interested going into this album by the way it was described to me but upon listening to it I found it was not quite what I was expecting. There was way more hip hop/rap influence on the album, which while allowed for some great instrumentals and beats to be written, left a lot to be desired in the vocal department. The two female vocalists, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, have amazing singing voices but they are not very interesting rappers. This makes the back half of the album a bit of a drag for me, with similar sounding rap songs that don't quite do it for me outside of having some cool beats. This does make any of the songs that have more melodic elements stand out all the more. This brings me to another problem I have with the album which is length. This album is 57 minutes long and it sure does use every second of it, although I don't think they should've used every second of it. The aforementioned second half of the album could have some of the songs cut almost in half and they would make no difference, especially with how similar a lot of them sound. I wanted to have this album listened to yesterday to not make the review any later but I was getting fatigued listening to it. To pivot to a more positive note, the instrumentals themselves are very nice. An interesting mix of electronic elements and funk with some heavier rock stuff sprinkled in for some added punch. There is a good amount of brass on here too which just sounds awesome in the mix. This is a fine album that I can't see myself really coming back to aside from a few songs, although I am curious to hear what else Cibo Matto have done. 6.5/10 album