I hate to say it, but Love Psychedelico has succumbed to the dreaded "second-album syndrome" with "Love Psychedelico Orchestra," which was released Jan. 9. It's not a bad album -- in fact it has some great songs, like the opening track, "Standing Bird," which features a wonderfully infectious keyboard riff, and "O," a fast-paced rocker. There's also more acoustic stuff than on the duo's debut set, "The Greatest Hits," which varies the band's sonic palette a bit.
Overall, though, the album (which entered the Oricon chart at No. 1) follows the same formula as "The Greatest Hits": '70s-style rock with lots of hooks, a stripped-down "analog" production style, a strange amalgam of English and Japanese lyrics (with a far higher ratio of English than most J-pop songs) and Kumi's very nasal, American English-accented vocals. Let me make one thing perfectly clear, as Dick Nixon used to say: I've got nothing against American English per se. It's just that Kumi's strong American-style intonation and accent sound terribly affected and are rather grating after a while. Enough, already.
As for the wacky lyrics, well, here's a sample: