Song Review:: OWV: BLACK CROWN- BLACK CROWN {Japanese}

• Release date: 2025 September 30

• Album tracklist: BLACK CROWN, Nine 2 Five, Ichigoichie, BLACK CROWN - Instrumental, Nine 2 Five - Instrumental, Ichigoichie - Instrumental

• Album runtime: 16 minutes

 Okay, just because I don't want EPITHYMiA to be lonely in my sudden departure from my normal, I'll do another J-Pop group (and I'm going to do the JO1 recent release because I recently discovered that I love them). This one popped up on my YouTube recommendations, much like some of the C-Pop releases that have shown up but I'm not quite ready for that yet. I can't guarantee that I'll be doing more J-Pop groups, but the best way to get me to do one would be to drop the request in The Form. This is actually a group of former trainees from Produce 101 Japan, and they debuted back in 2020, with all of them being born last century. I too was born last century. It's fine. Actually, one of them is part of the illustrious 95z line and the other three are part of the equally impressive 97z. So my expectations are really quite high for this quartet.

Thank you, group, for including the instrumental. That actually helps a lot. I love it when traditional instruments are used in non-traditional genres because that taps into my love of history. I'm not sure what instruments these are, I'm lucky to be able to take a guess when I'm listening to Korean instruments, but the combination of the traditional and the techno is delightfully intriguing. It also makes the song sound a little dark, but probably only because I can feel the type of video game that this would be in. I am curious about the music video, which I've seen probably the first five seconds of because YouTube is like that.

Judging solely by the English at the beginning of the song in the lyrics, this is a fighting song. That's good. That matches what kind of video game the instrumental sounds like. We've got big vocals in this, vibrato, harmonizing, a range of tones. Essentially everything I love hearing in a song, you know? I'm actually reminded a lot of The KingDom here, which partially could be because of the traditional elements, but vocally, it's actually quite similar to their song Coup D'etat (which is funny because The KingDom also has a song called Black Crown). Same depth of vocals and power. All three of the songs on this hit the same spot in my brain, which I am all about. 

This is what I want in a music video. Done. Sold.  Oh, I suppose you want a little bit more description. Fine. Well, it's very atmospheric, with it being all stormy and lightning-y and whatnot, but the chessboard is what really sells it for me. This is a battle anthem and it's being treated as such. Yes, there's a lot of the vibes and visuals in play, but at the same time, what's going on is battle preparation, specifically some sort of rebellion.