I picked up the character song album for Death Connection (a PS2 graphic adventure from Idea Factory) because I enjoyed the OST, written by Yuki Sugiura. Of course, I should have noticed that the character vocal themes were in no way associated with Sugiura's work. Silly me.

So the disc has 7 songs, and then the instrumentals for those same 7 songs. Of the tracks here, there was only one that I truly enjoyed: the opening track, "Distino." And man, did I really enjoy this one. If this song were released as a theme song single for a game or anime, I would want to own the single. It's that good. The production is great, the dude's voice is great, the melody and rhythm are great. The best part of all, though, is the timing for the big aural explosions. The belted opening "whooa!!" is a favorite. The guitar punches at certain points in the song are great too. All in all, near-perfect J-rock.

Sadly, the rest of the album fails dramatically in terms of quality. Even when the same composer/arranger/vocalist comes back for the ending track, "Endless Night," I wasn't impressed. All the songs in-between the opening and ending are gimmicky and generally hard to endorse.

So, is this Character Song Album worth it? Hard to say. Generally, for most people, I guess the answer is no. A single would cost you $10: this full album costs you almost triple, and the other songs add almost nothing to the value. I'm happy to have discovered "Distino," which is truly one of the better pop/rock songs of the last two or three years. But it was a high price to pay.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann