To be fair, the ungoogleability here is partially due to Beyonce and Jay Z just releasing an album (yes, we’re covering it) with “love” in the title…

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Ryo Miyauchi: =LOVE is yet another pack of idols turning to the stark, string-driven intensity of Keyakizaka to give a shock to its rather traditional image. But while producer and HKT48 member Rino Sashihara answers to the high-stakes drama by writing about love with gravity to match, the note-for-note performance skims over some of the more visceral imagery. The draw of “Teokure Caution,” then, is that climactic key change: standard, but reliable as far as tricks go.
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Dorian Sinclair: I can’t really explain or justify my love for bombastic strings in a pop song, but it’s very real. Pair that with the harpsichord (!!) and that frantic synth stab under the chorus, and it almost doesn’t matter what’s above them — but fortunately, both melody and performance are more than able to match the energy of the production.
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Alfred Soto: However much I appreciate the speed of J-pop, the fizz goes out of this soda by the 90-second mark despite those attractive piano runs (and I do mean runs).
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Vikram Joseph: We told you this was melodrama. “Teokure Caution” is a constant high-wire act, quite exhausting to listen to, where every choice of chord progression is the most theatrical one available. At the risk of misappropriating Western pop influences to a J-Pop song, I can hear a lot of ABBA fandom in here, and also plenty of Muse’s space-age-baroque histrionics. The English translation I read suggests that the lyrics aren’t any less overwrought, either.
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Katherine St Asaph: Bach bosh! This isn’t good, and every part of the arrangement sounds like a Windows 95 MIDI, but it is entirely my brand of melodrama.
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Iain Mew: Japanese idol pop vocals with a focus on intensity above all else can pair excellently with styles of music bringing equal force and supporting it with greater intricacy, be it metal, shoegaze, or this baroque’n’roll thriller. =LOVE’s intensity keeps them charging forwards past viciously revving synths, and carrying off finely balanced stop-start manoeuvres, culminating in a bravura key change that deserves a standing ovation.
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