[Tony G]

After a few days with this album, it has grown on me and I'm comfortable to give each song a score.

1. Wake me up - 9/10
2. Song 4 u - 9.5/10
3. Missing - 9/10
4. SAKURA - 8/10
5. Melody - 8.5/10
6. task'n'bass - 8/10
7. Bye-bye darling - 9/10
8. Snowy kiss - 7.5/10
9. Sweet scar - 8/10
10. petal - 7/10
11. glasses - 8/10
12. untitled for her... story 2 - 5/10
13. Gloria - 5/10
14. Ivy - 5/10
15. You & Me - 7.5/10

I think the first run of 7 tracks is brilliant. Especially Song 4 u. In the context of this album, that is by far the highlight song. From tracks 8 to 11 the standard goes down somewhat, and the end of the album is its weakest moment. You & Me strangely works well as an ending track, I wouldn't have liked Ivy to finish things off.

SAKURA really grew on me. I think it's placing before Melody is perfect. Bye-bye darling is the best of the new tracks. petal, gloria and untitled are all somewhat disappointing.

I think a lot of the disappointment surrounding this album comes from the fact that most of the new tracks are mediocre. But the mini album songs are strong statements on their own, and had this been the first time I listened to every track on LOVE again I probably would have felt, overall, more impressed. But given I'm familiar with all of those songs, the new songs really drag the overall "newness" of this album down.

And I don't like to blame the boring aspects of this album of one single thing, but I think it's safe to pinpoint Yuka Nakano's incredibly boring and uninspired arrangements didn't bring the full potential of many of these songs out, especially from tracks 10 to 14. Even Melody to a degree, though I now love that song. More CMJK and tasaku please, Ayu.

PS - did anyone notice that SAKURA is technically the first Japanese title to an Ayu song?