THE ORAL CIGARETTES - UNOFFICIAL Album Review

THE ORAL CIGARETTES had one of the best rock albums of last year with FIXION, a collection of fast and catchy straight-up rock music by some of the most skillful musicians around. Singles like A-E-U-I solidified the band's formula, and they're back this year with their third full-length album UNOFFICIAL. In my personal opinion, it may have been just a little bit too soon.

UNOFFICIAL opens up with Licorice, which picks up right where the band left off. Fast riffs and impeccable vocals, and a pretty catchy song to boot. From there, though, I start to sort of fall off the bandwagon. I find myself wanting to go back to FIXION rather than keep going through UNOFFICIAL. It's not a bad album by far, but it's not as good of an album as FIXION. We do get the amazing single 5150 on the first half, and there are definitely some standout tracks later on, but nothing reaches out and grabs you the way 気づけよBaby did, or 狂乱 Hey Kids!!, both early tracks on FIXION. The instrumentation here is still great, the vocals are just as strong as you would expect, but something about the songwriting feels off for me.

As far as the second half of the album, I love the next single Shala La. There's also a pretty nice ballad, Futoumei na Yukigeshou. There's just not as much of a strong sense of identity. I hate to keep comparing this to FIXION, but that album was a much more solid entry into the band's discography. It had a stronger overall composition, there was much more killer than filler, whereas this new album feels like it has a higher volume of filler tracks.

If you're a hardcore fan of THE ORAL CIGARETTES, this isn't a bad album. It's worth a listen for sure, and there are good songs among the filler. If you're just someone looking for a strong rock album, though, I recommend you give FIXION a listen. Maybe check out some of the singles embedded above, or some of the older songs mentioned. THE ORAL CIGARETTES are a great band, I think UNOFFICIAL is just a little bit below their talent threshold. They could have done better, and they've proven that before. I'm sure they'll be back with more great singles in no time.

-Justin

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