Elva Hsiao’s 3 Faced

Ages ago I did a “Propaganda” post on her, just after she piqued my interest. I finally got around to purchasing her 3Faced album, the pre-order edition which was packaged with three of her early album (helloooo debut!) and I just recieved it today, along with Shokotan’s last two singles.

There a few more ballads in the collection than I would really like there to be, but that’s pretty okay because her up-beat songs more than make-up for it and the ballads themselves are pretty good songs anyway.

The packaging is pretty amazing. It’s very, very elegant. There are a couple of different versions of the album cover and this one is the Wholehearted Version, specifically. One thing I really have to rejoice at is that the tracklist on 3Faced has alternate ENGLISH titles! Which means I don’t have to constantly refer to the tracks in number form, like ”Hey, do you like Track 7? I like Track 12!” It gets irritating quick.

My Chinese is non-existant but I honestly do really enjoy this album even without the comprehension her native fans have. With Japanese releases I usually have some idea what’s being said (usually) but I like being thrown into the deep end and having no clue. Relying on the sound of the songs and the emotion in the vocals gives you an abstract understanding of each song. It’s hard to explain – basically you don’t have to disect the lyrics or even identify them as along any sort of theme to reach a conclusion on what they mean to you, yourself. It’s a good assessment of how effective the song is.

But I digress.
Highlights on the album are as follows I’ll Be There, Impulse, More More More and Hey Girl.
Count me as an Elva fan… now I really need to get my hands on her 1087 album.

Add a comment November 1, 2008