Bellaphon's "Firefly"

Artist: Bellaphon (Japan)
Album: Firefly

The album beings with Jade, a very guitar heavy, breezy sounding instrumental. It’s pretty light hearted and happy, but it’s definitely not cheesy. I still have no idea what kind of band Bellaphon are, though. This song has a lot of different musical elements in it. Let’s just see what’s on the next track, I guess.
Oh, and yes, I do like it.

The second track is Le Petite Prince. Wow, what a precious title. I couldn’t think of something more sweet and cute than that.
It’s very dreamy sounding. In a way it reminds me of some of the music on my old N-64 games I used to play. Like, it has a somewhat midi feel to it, but not exactly.

Alright. This band continues to confuse me. This is definitely more rock oriented than the purely electronic Le Petite Prince. It has a Spanish sounding guitar, electric guitar, various synths, piano… Very eclectic. Yes, that’s the perfect word for Mistral, the third track. It’s most certainly fun to listen to such an eclectic song.
I absolutely adore it. And I mean adore. Pure adoration.
If I didn’t mention before, all the tracks have been instrumentals. I’m getting the feeling the other five tracks won’t be featuring vocals either.

You confuse me yet again, Bellaphon. Belle du Jour is a minute long, classical piano piece. It’s very beautiful, a part of me wants it to be longer.
But we must press onward.

The first thing I notice about Vent du Midi is the length: it’s almost 10 minutes long (!). And oh dear god, am I confused! What kind of band are they? What would I classify this as when they’re jumping all over the place!
Okay, I love this. I love this so much. Every song is so unique, and my confusion feels wonderful. They’re very diverse and I think that they’re wide range of genres is impressive, to say the least. Vent du Midi, like the others, is fantastic. At 4:30 it even features woodwinds. Fucking woodwinds. I have to say that it gets amazing after that point. I think this is going to become a favorite of mine. I just have no complaints at all.
And if you’re wondering, yes, I did listen to all 9 minutes 45 seconds without any other distractions.

Following that is another long song, Evros. It’s 45 seconds shorter than Vent du Midi, but let’s see if I’ll like it enough to sit through all of it like I did with the last track.
For some reason it reminds me a tiny bit of Final Fantasy. Am I a nerd for even saying that? That along with my Nintendo 64 comment earlier, yes, I am.
I would think that a fan of the old 90s midi music would love this. And, as a fan of 90s midi music, I love this.
Evros is very guitar heavy, at least from the 4 minutes I’ve heard so far. Now it’s slowing a bit and reminding me a lot of Final Fantasy now (I promise I’ll stop soon). It gains speed again at the 5 minute mark, although it definitely isn’t a fast song. Oh, and I love the keyboard solo at around 5:30. Oh, yes I do.
I don’t normally say this, but this band is very, very talented. I would love to see them working on a song, and to see them write to see how they work.

The seventh track is Firefly. I’m very curious what they’ll do with this song, it seems so unpredictable.
!!
Okay, I see. Firefly is the longest so far at almost 13 minutes. Now I see why this album only has eight tracks. Considering that Art of Life, a 28 minute song, is a favorite of mine, I’m not really bothered by such long tracks provided that they stay interesting throughout all of it. Here’s to hoping Firefly can satisfy that.
So far, 2 minutes, 30 seconds in, it’s very keyboard heavy. I’m looking forward to the rest of this song. Wow, that’s something you don’t hear a lot of this blog…
Really, I just have so much respect to any band that can create songs this long. It takes a lot of creativity and talent, especially to create interesting material that length.
At 5 minutes, 30 seconds, it takes a dramatic turn with very slow keyboards, guitar and birds chirping.
At 8:30, it turns to lounge music!... I really do adore this, it’s so unpredictable and original. I’m sorry that I don’t have much to say, I’ve just been listening intently this whole time.

The last track is the 7 minute Labyrinth. It seems so small in comparison, doesn’t it? Well, it feels much more explosive than the others, if that makes sense. Which is great to end an album on, in my opinion.
This is so predictable of me, but it’s superb. Dare I say, at 2:15, it’s orgasmic. Crude, I know, but that’s the only way I feel I can describe it. It’s a breath-taking way to end the album, it really brings it to a final and complete close, leaving me feeling very happy that I took the time to listen.
Let’s end this review, you must be tired of me raving about this like some fanboy. Fangirl, actually.


Do I even need to say it?

5 out of 5.
Excellent, fantastic, amaing, fascinating, unique and original. I know it might not be everyone’s “thing”, but it’s exactly all those adjectives above to me. I would recommend that anyone and everyone give it a try, even just once. I love this record, and I enjoyed every last second of it.
Considering that I have never heard of this band before listening, I’ll say that they’re underappreciated. Call me an idiot if they’re actually very popular and I just didn’t know.

Edit: The genre is progressive rock, which explains the long track lengths. I have no idea why I was having such trouble classifying it.