Got my copy of the album in the post today and given the CD and DVD a quick spin. I’ve been kinda looking forward to it, mostly for the DVD footage – I feared the music would be awful beyond comprehension but I am relieved to report that’s not quite the case.

The vocals are split evenly between all four girls on all the tracks. They sound pretty decent on record, Kotobuki Minako is the obvious standout vocalist but their harmonies are pretty decent. Toyosaki Aki also manages to keep her squeak in check. Style-wise it’s the upbeat galpop similar to their three singles released so far (FUTURE STREAM, Super Noisy Nova, Kaze o Atsumete) with very little deviation.

Briefly whipping through the tracks:
1. FUTURE STREAM
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Yamaguchi Akihiko
First single, opinion of it hasn’t changed much. It’s OK, not a particular favourite of mine. Decent way to open the album.

2. Hontou Dakara Komarunda (本当だから困るんだ)
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Watanabe Kazunori
Fun, upbeat track with a nice bouncy beat.

3. PRINCESS CODE
Lyrics: Kodama Saori Composition/Arrangement: Hashimoto Yukari
I hate the Lalalala intro of the song. It sort of got better by the chorus but doesn’t really grab me. The arrangement is rather annoying too.

4. Treasures!!
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Kurosu Katsuhiko
c/w for FUTURE STREAM. Nothing special but not particularly terrible either.

5. Kimi no Sora ga Hareru Made (君の空が晴れるまで)
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Watanabe Kazunori
OK I’m running out of ways to describe the songs without using ‘fun’ or ‘upbeat’. So…. this is upbeat and fun.

6. Rakugaki Dictionary (らくがきDictionary)
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Kurosu Katsuhiko
Song has been doing the radio rounds as promo for the album and it’s not hard to see why. While not quite a ballad, it’s slower than most of the other tracks and has a very pleasant melody line that somehow reminds me of…. FEEL MY BREEZE by V6. At this point in time, my favourite track on the album.

7. Dangerous girls
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition/Arrangement: Kurosu Katsuhiko
Still hate this song. How could I ever like something with the lyrics ‘Huli Huli dance’ I don’t know.

8. Dream sign
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition: Kurosu Katsuhiko Arrangement: Nijine
Ughhhh. Shit attempt to rock out. Skip skip skip skip.

9. Super Noisy Nova
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition: rino Arrangement: Nijine
The song has grown on me a lot after watching Sora no Manimani. No complaints here.

10. Joyful x Joyful
Lyrics/Composition: rino Composition/Arrangement: Okubo Kaoru
Written by the CooRie team, I guess this is the only song that qualifies as a ballad on the album and it’s not bad. A bit of a Christmassy feel to it with the ‘Joyful’ theme.

11. Sayonara SEE YOU (サヨナラSEE YOU)
Lyrics: Kodama Saori Composition/Arrangement: Yamaguchi Akihiko
……it has horns. It’s fast-paced. It’s nondescript.

12. A.T.M.O.S.P.H.E.R.E.
Lyrics: Hata Aki Composition: Kurosu Katsuhiko Arrangement: Nijine
The lead promo song for the album, with its own PV. I didn’t like it at first but on second thought… the chorus is actually very catchy.

DVD

The real meat of the package, the 45-minute DVD covers the A.T.M.O.S.P.H.E.R.E. PV and a segment called ‘Road of Sphere’, which is split between behind-the-scenes footage from before the girls formed Sphere right up til today and the play they performed at the Shake x Sphere event in August.

The PV is very fun, with underwater and safari themes – what’s more interesting is the stuff going on in the background, you can see Tomatsu Haruka mock fishing and fooling about with fishing nets and floats half the time.

Also features a load of elevator scenes, the best one where Tomacchan shoves Takagaki Ayahi off the screen

Part 2 is behind-the-scenes footage beginning from the early days before the announcement of the formation of Sphere. The image above was probably taken around mid-2008.

What I love about all this footage is that…. Haruka wears shorts a lot

I mean look. Ayahi’s wrapped up like a goth, Mina-chan is in jeans, Aki-chan wearing black tights and she’s… wearing shorts

I like how Aki-chan is always living in a world of her own – while the rest of the girls are crying after coming off the stage she’s clapping her hands away happily, which seems like something (Hirasawa) Yui would do.

Before 1st Stream, the girls walk past the camera saying GANBARIMASU!! except for Mina-chan who goes…’Food, food. I want to eat food’.

MEGANEKKO TOMATSU KYAAAA!!! And zomg Mina-chan dimple XD

I would love this shot more if their kimonos were shorter.

Part 3 (sort of), is the segment from Shake X Sphere. Strangely enough their live singing isn’t as bad as I’d feared – they were trying to sing Super Noisy Nova while doing the lame dance and it was actually fairly OK.

The play was lol stupid and featured random stuff like the girls rewriting SNN with hilariously dumb lyrics (cows giving birth, celery that tastes terrible) and in-jokes (MOTTO HADE NI NE). It was rather amusing, though you’d obviously have to know Japanese to understand it.

Overall… I probably wouldn’t buy A.T.M.O.S.P.H.E.R.E. solely for the music. I’m rather surprised Kaze o Atsumete was left off the album since it’s their best song IMHO, but overall it’s a decent purchase if just for the DVD. Oh and the B2 poster that came with the CD is just the promo pic that’s being used on Sphere’s site:

Uhhhh my camera (literally) broke so I had to use my phone :/

I did a quick tweet about this but I suppose it’s worth posting about too – Tomatsu Haruka will be getting her first photobook release on 9th October 2009. Flyer above (to be published in next Seigura) promises a ‘resort’ theme with poolside pictures. Actually if that’s the cover I would say it looks retarded. Oh well, Tomatsu of the 20,000 faces, what do I expect.

The news was announced at yesterday’s ShakeXSphere event. Other stuff:

Most of the newsbytes taken from Music Ray’n no Kisetsu blog, the owner claims to have spotted the following people at ShakeXSphere because his seat was below the VIP section:
Abe Atsuhi (confirmed via his blog), Hirohashi Ryo, Sato Rina, Yasumoto Hiroki (Ryo, Rina & Hiroki confirmed), Asanuma Shintaro, Hikasa Yoko, Sato Satomi, Asumi Kana, Nakajima Megumi (confirmed), MAKO, Ise Mariya, Fukari Yukui, Sanpei Yuko (MAKO etc confirmed), Tanaka Rie, Fukuen Misato & Hayami Saori.

All four Sphere girls’ blog reports on the event:
Kotobuki Minako
Takagaki Ayahi
Toyosaki Aki
Tomatsu Haruka