Forever Blue Sky - A look at Cielbleu's 1st CD

As I mentioned back with the introduction post for the Yamashita brothers they are currently in a group called Cielbleu. Well the group has released a CD/DVD single which I am happy to say that I am a proud owner of. And as a note before getting into things, from the signatures on the back of the CD Mizuno Shintaro romanizes his name as Sin (it should still be pronounced as 'Shin' though as し can be romanized as either 'shi' or 'si'), so that is what I will be calling him from here on out.

From left to right: Leon, Sean & Sin

The CD has three songs and the DVD is about a half hour of the boys doing their photo shoot, short interviews with each one, and then footage of some of the recording for the CD. 

Forever is the strongest track on the CD. I love that it has a driving beat as I am a sucker for songs with those. It has an interesting part at the start that sounds like the sound is cutting out but is actually just a transition to the beat coming in with the vocals. And speaking of vocals Sean is the lead vocals of all the songs, which I do not mind as I have always liked his voice. The song has a "rap" section but I cannot say who does it, other than most likely not Sean. 

I love that E!MOTION has some rock-pop elements to it. Though I do think out of all the tracks this one does sound the most like they were not using a real recording studio for these songs with how echo-y the voices sounded like. Though I guess that could just have been a deliberate choice they made but I do not care for the sound that much. Outside of that I enjoy it. It sounds like one of those songs you would usually hear being used as an anime theme, which is not a bad comparison. I like anime theme songs and this sounds like it would be a fun one to listen to.

2U is a slower song compared to the other two songs. And has these wonderful soft moments in it that I am love with. I think this song is the best with showing off the vocals of the group. I will not say they are the best vocals but they work for the songs and I think show promise if trained more. I do not think I would have thought Sean as someone who could a lead singer but with this release and a song like 2U it proves that he had the potential and thankfully he finally has the chance to prove it.

I find it interesting that Sean helps write the lyrics for all three songs and that Sin helps write the music for them all. Leon at least helps with lyrics for Forever which is just the two brothers listed as lyricists. I am sure when he gets more experience he may do more.

Sin/Mizuno Shintaro

I really knew very little about Sin before this but he seemed to be pretty likable. He seemed to be able to get along with the brothers just fine, though probably because of his age seemed to get along better with Sean as they are both in their 20s.

Yamashita Sean

Of course it is always great to see Sean's smiling face. I think I missed that the most during the interval between quitting Johnny's and appearing again regularly with this new career.

Yamashita Leon

And I am glad to see more of Leon as well, if just because he is still a bit shy so it is harder to get a good idea about him. But he seems much more open with this DVD, perhaps because it is all pretty informal and casual.

I thought the DVD was not only interesting because of the boys themselves but because you could see a lot of background things that usually gets hidden in other making of DVDs. Like the fact that the song recordings were not actually done in a sound stage at a recording studio but in a room that was made into a make shift recording studio. 

I think it really shows the difference between an idol group that is truly starting from the bottom of things and have to work themselves up to where ever they will go.

I am really glad I was able to get this CD/DVD, especially as its release is very limited so it really is not on sale for those who live outside of Japan to be able to get a hold of easily. I was lucky and a fan visiting Japan picked up a couple of extra of copies for others to purchase from them to help support the boys. So I am not only hoping that we will get more releases from Cielbleu in the future but also that they will be sold in stores next time so international fans will be able to buy copies easier.