"Level3" is going to look amazing live. Perfume member Ayaka "A-Chan" Nishiwaki reportedly told producer Yasutaka Nakata that her trio wanted songs suited to the huge venues they'd perform it in. Nakata has obliged. Perfume's fourth studio album — the first with access to Universal Music's deep pockets — is an attempt to position the group as a pop/EDM (electronic dance music) live force without fully going the route of Skrillex. It's not a leveling up of Perfume's sound, but a refinement of what the band intends to present in an arena circuit.
This becomes clear via the "album mix" versions of three of the singles released over the past year and a half. "Spring of Life," "Magic of Love" and "Spending All My Time" were simple, catchy pop numbers. Here they get augmented with drawn-out intros and outros (it works on "Magic," not so much on the other two) that seem like setups for a big stage piece. All three work better than the other single released ahead of "Level3," the "Doraemon" movie-tie-in "Mirai no Museum" ("Future Museum"), which features a phoned-in electro-pop sound that is painfully out of place.
The bulk of Perfume's latest release finds Nakata taking moments from the trio's past and blowing them up into songs that, when performed live, will look fantastic with lasers. Opener "Enter The Sphere" is a more fidgety version of 2007's "Game," while "Sleeping Beauty" recalls that year's airy "Butterfly." The glitchy "Daijobu nai" ("Not OK") is an improved version of last album cycle's "Nee" and "Fake It." The album's centerpiece, the seven-minute "Party Maker," updates 2009's "Edge (Triangle Mix)" from Ed Banger dancefloor nihilism into the most EDM-ish track on the album. Nakata and crew pull off the largesse well (I'm picturing holographic confetti raining down on the audience).