born's "felony" vs. BORN's "Spiral Lie"

Recently, BORN has released a new PV and I didn't know what to expect. I've been constantly conflicted with their direction since the expansion of their library under PS Company and this further complicates my relationship with them.




"felony" is born's first PV and the first PV I saw of theirs back in 2008. I thought they had an amazing sound and with every release I fell further and further in love with them. They have great chemistry on and off stage and set, which is quite admirable.

"felony" is a smooth song with great transitions of heavy, fast paced energy and alluring, slow chorus line that draws you in courtesy of Ryouga's unique vocals and Kifumi's strong basslines. The setting is very basic j-indies empty room, band centric camera angles with emphasis on the vocalist in certain scenes, but it still keeps the viewer's attention. The costumes aren't extremely elaborate either, but each member has a very distinct look to them from each other that's very subtle. It makes fans focus on the music rather than the flashy costumes or attractive faces or bodies of the members.




About four years later, born has become BORN and under the label of PSC. My complaints with their move came when I realized that nearly every song had the same musical and vocal structures. They also didn't sound as powerful as before and their appearance concerned me that they would become a lesser Gazette.

Here we have another empty space, not so flashy costumes, band centric camera angles, and Ryouga tied up in a chair with some female in the same room. With these similar elements, I (and a couple friends) immediately thought of their first PV, except less impactful. The costumes look like Alice Nine. leftovers, the 360 degree camera around the room with combination of various cuts made it sickening and annoying, and the song was pretty much the same structure with a sprinkle of artificial hardcoreness. There is nothing memorable about the PV or the song. No alluring vocals or strong basslines, excluding the short duet with Ryouga and Kifumi.

It's clear that I'm very bias to BORN's old ways and their direction back then, but it's hard to ignore that "Spiral Lie" PV is just a lesser version of their past that is "felony". If you're going to repeat an idea, at least make it more epic than before. Out of all the PVs they've released under PSC, I think this is their weakest one, which is quite saddening since I wasn't all that impressed with "ProudiA". I still have faith that they will turn it around, so I'll keep fingers crossed.