[Raleigh]

Well.. it's an okay album and probably above average from most of the stuff other artists released. However personally I felt it brought nothing groundbreaking or new to Koda Kumi. It has the same formula as BC, a mixture of urban and cutesy poppy songs, so I couldn't help get the feeling that this was Black Cherry Part 2. That was a bit of a disappointment.

Furthermore the lack of continuity made this album sound a bit messy. This album has this polished album cover and a proclamation of something superior with the "Kingdom" title but the content doesn't seem to hold up its' name. It was as if they threw the songs haphazardly in the album. A couple of interludes wouldn't have hurt to make this album sound more polished and professional.

I guess the genre selection was to make happy all her fans but I'm kinda sick of her cutesy pop songs. I'd prefer her mature songs and her urban tracks so I was left with few new tracks that I really liked. I really liked Under and Amai Wana though. Amai Wana was a really great track, they managed to recreate her Arabian genre without making it sound like the rest of her Arabian songs. I was kinda disappointed at how anticlimatic Black Cherry was though.. the interlude promised a lot but it was quite flat imo.

The album did seem kind of rushed in several ways, kinda like Ayu's albums. avex seems just happy to pack their artists albums with lackluster pvs just so that they can mention that x artist has x pvs in her album. A lot of the new pvs were rather cheap and quite boring, while others were okay but not particularly spectacular.

Personally I still think her older material is much better. Her Secret album had a lot of exciting material, jam packed with excellent ballads and urban tracks. Nothing can beat that album.