Another day, another album leak. This time it’s the new long player from Kalafina, one of producer Kajiura Yuki’s recent, highly active pet projects. I’ve long resigned myself to being unable to distinguish between Kajiura’s songs - it certainly does not help when you have a back catalogue as extensive as she does, while her persistence in recycling the same 2-3 chord progressions for 95% of her material is another stumbling block.

After Eden suffers from the same problems marring pretty much every pop record Kajiura’s written over the past couple of years. All this might have sounded fresh and bright when Chiba Saeko was the one providing vocals for a set of heavenly-sounding songs on everything, but when it’s recycled and rehashed to the point of feeling a sense of déjà vu on virtually every track…it just doesn’t fly anymore.

New & hardcore fans might find lots to love about After Eden; I remain suitably unimpressed.