Yorushika
Elma
Album · J-Pop · 2019
Yorushika aimed to wrap up the narrative started on Dakara Boku Wa Ongaku Wo Yameta via Elma’s uptempo guitar-and-piano-powered tunes. The first half of this story, featured on Dakara Boku Wa Ongaku Wo Yameta, helped the duo attract a dedicated fanbase fascinated by the larger concept. Yorushika’s songs, meanwhile, managed to be exhilarating and catchy enough to pull in more general listeners lacking the time to devote to the worldbuilding within. Elma further highlights Yorushika’s conceptual ambitions and tightened sound.
Whereas Dakara Boku Wa Ongaku Wo Yameta focused on a character known as Amy communicating with Elma via postcards, Yorushika’s second 2019 full-length flips the perspective. Framed as a series of diary entries from the titular Elma, Yorushika loads the songs here with details rounding out the story begun on Dakara Boku Wa Ongaku Wo Yameta. Taken together, the two works bring out new depth in one another, making the project stand out.
It helped that the pair’s music shined even when removed from the story’s context. The alternative-rock sound composer N-buna developed as a VOCALOID producer in the early 2010s provides Elma’s numbers with plenty of bite, while vocalist Suis offers sweetness via her high-register singing. The combination gives inclusions like “Walk” and “Evening Calm, Somewhere, Fireworks” an extra punch and helps make the emotionally complicated and frequently downcast lyrics hit harder. The piano continues to become more central to Yorushika’s palette, with N-buna putting greater emphasis on the instrument during slower songs, like the ballad “Only Sorrow” and the funky “After the Rain”. This growing confidence in songwriting and storytelling comes together on the slow-burning closer, “Nautilus”, demonstrating Yorushika’s ability to write an intricate number and offer a proper ending to the story.