DDBY - Highway2

Bizen
Highway2
[DDBY; 2010]

6.2









I cannot deny that the circle DDBY can produce some classy-ass shit. If all of the music in the world as opposed to two-thirds of Comiket were just Touhou arranges, Bizen would be listened to by gentlemen in top-hats sitting by the fire in their lavish chairs as tall as thrones sipping pricey brandy and wine while polishing their monocles while pulling out the 78 RPM Touhou Synthesis set (assuming we all don’t hang ourselves from their being only two-hundred fifty-something or so songs ever made and billions of arranges of each first).

In late June, DDBY has released their third album of 2010. Likewise with the original Highway, Highway2’s arranges are based off the spinoff game starring Aya Shameimaru, who has been scorned and loved by many, either as a borderline-Tabloid reporter in canon, or as a cumdumpster by fanon. The original Highway were arranges of Shoot the Bullet, so now we are treated to remixes of Double Spoiler tracks. Based off Modern Youkai Colony, opener City is your standard jazzy liquid funk that we have come to know and love from Bizen. Piano Soon somehow sounds even more eastern than The Mystery in Your Home Town and sedates the original track’s hectic tempos with chilled out cheery flutes. Nemesis’s Stronghold is remixed twice on this album, with both arranges averting the usual formula Bizen has been known for in his past releases. Syncopation implements rough percussion and high-spirited synths reminiscent of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Square Night sounds like primitive instrument mimicking music programs and club music where funk is locked into combat with techno. Based off Bell of Avici ~ Infinite Nightmare and closer Auto Pilot is guitarist Takayan’s moment to shine, but even coupled with the spastic at first glance breaks, it still doesn’t save the arrange from sounding like something I’d hear playing on The Weather Channel.

Highway2 has no actual misfires but suffers from the never-changing drum line which comes off as tragically generic and seldom changing, similar to TS5. The breaks feel like they were made in a short amount of time and pushed out the door. The blandness is hidden by the instrumentals huddling together around it to keep it out of main sight, but every once in a while someone drops their amber-stem pipes and exposes the weakest part of the drum and bass offshoot remixes: The drum and bass itself.