Single review: Perfume - Cling cling

Perfume won't take a seat for the whole of July until local hospitals are full of women in the A&E department crying to be giving an emergency lace-front or a black shower cap, because they seem hell bent on scalping. The past 2 months has been a continuous roll out of news and material from the holy trinity that is Perfume. But when all is said is done and we pin everything down to the music, how does their 25th single really fare?

When I first heard "Cling cling" I was extremely disappointed, because Yasutaka Nakata had essentially given Perfume a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song and insisted they sing it just like her. Just when I thought he had finally gotten to a point where he had found a way to diverge their sounds from one another, he goes and pulls this shit with "Cling cling". The song itself isn't terrible. It's well produced, and at the every least Perfume have never done a song like it before. But it leaves a sour taste in my mouth, because when all is said and done it is still a case of Perfume singing a Pamyu Pamyu song as Pamyu Pamyu would sing it. If any of us wanted to hear a Pamyu Pamyu song, we would just listen to Pamyu Pamyu. I don't know if Nakata is trying to use "Cling cling" as a furtive way of selling more copies of Pika pika fantajin, but the ultimate shortcoming for "Cling cling" is that it doesn't feel like a Perfume song. It has grown on me considerably as a result of their live performances of it, but I still don't like the song itself. Even with the whole chip-tuned video game  and Final Fantasy vibes, I just can't get into the song unless I'm watching the girls perform it.

"Hold your hand" (or "Sweet refrain 2.0" as you could very easily label it) was a wrap from the day the preview leaked online. The song itself isn't completely terrible. But it came too soon after "Sweet refrain" which did everything "Hold your hand" tries to do, only better and in due course. So much time has passed since we first heard "Hold your hand" and everybody has pretty much forgotten about it because it is so indistinct from "Sweet refrain" and it's just an indistinct song in general. Then there are Perfume's vocals which are shriller than normal and venture into a register during the pre chorus which is so high that it becomes white noise and dogs start barking for their life. "Hold your hand" could work with a few tweaks here and there. But as it is there just isn't enough to sink your teeth into that we didn't already with "Sweet refrain". If there's one song this era we can do without on Perfume's fifth studio album, it's this one. But chances are it will make the cut, seeing as it was tied to a TV drama and it has itself itself a music video.

"Display" was full of promise from the day the raggedy footage of the commercial hit the web, giving us a taste of the song. Disappointingly we don't get a great deal more in the full version that we didn't hear in the preview. Normally with Perfume songs the preview is deliberately truncated in a way which leaves us wondering what the rest of the song will sound like and 90% of the time there is a switch or a shift nobody saw coming (i.e the chorus key change in "Glitter", the brightness of "Spring of life" or the whole of "Party maker"). The beats of "Display" are pretty hefty, but not the hardest. The wub wub isn't the most menacing and Nakata has gone harder for the likes of "Game", "Edge" and "Fake it". Nakata has been dabbling with lite variations of dubstep for a while now, but this is probably the best iteration of it that he's delivered thus far. There are lots of great little nuances in this track, such as the piano in the intro, the shift from a smooth dancefloor stomper to the distinct stutterings of dubstep and the vocal repetitions of the word 'Display' which are actually each of the girls individually taking turns to sing the word. It's been quite a while since we got something this edgy and hard from Perfume. Even in the wake of "Party maker", which was still tame in comparison to the likes of "Edge" and "Game". I can't wait to see the girls perform this song in its entirety, as the song seems geared more towards them putting on a show with it. I would not be surprised this "Display" got the album mix treatment and was made a minute or two longer. The full version definitely needs that extra something to truly give it that spark.

The B-side "Ijiwaru na hello" is the sleeper on this single. I had no expectations of this song and was expecting something really pedestrian and forgettable like "Koi wa zenkei shisei", but what we instead get is something which is strong enough to constitute being a contender for an album track and could have very easily had been a single in its own right. The song feels like an even brighter version of "Fushizen na girl" with a strong 80s vibe which surfaces during the hook rather unexpectedly, as the verses give no indication of the direction of which the song will go initially. As has become more and more prominent on Perfume's songs as of late, there is also a great deal of vocal layering and some nice harmonies which are used throughout the song to such an extent that they almost form the music itself. Whilst Perfume's vocals don't ruin or harm the song in the same way they do on "Hold your hand", I am beginning to tire slightly of Nakata's insistence that the girls sing in such a manner. Hearing the girls sing this song in their natural voices or at the very least a more toned down manner would have been amazing. A normal vocal with some soul and range behind it would have made this song killer. I could have done without the inclusion of the East Asian beat switches though. This song featuring on the same release as "Cling cling" gives it some context, but outside of this it feels too random. It's a shame Perfume didn't shoot a video for this song. Hopefully their choreographer Mikiko will hook it up and the girls will perform it live at some point.

"Cling, cling" is a very safe offering and also one to be concerned about. Whilst it's nice to have a diverse offering of songs with no two sounding remotely alike, at this point I am wondering what Perfume's next album will sound like and already it seems as though the consistency of Game or even Triangle is heading towards a window. Worryingly, the two weakest songs on the album are the ones which show the shift in the Perfume sound. As good as it is that Nakata is trying new things with the girls, I do not want an album of overly cute songs like "Hold your hand" or Pamyu Pamyu cast-offs like "Cling cling". But then again, as much as I like "Ijiwaru na hello", I don't want an album full of songs like this neither, and this is what worries me about this release. It leaves me wondering if Nakata is even sure of where Perfume's sound goes from LEVEL3 or if he's sure of where it should have gone from JPN.

RATING: 5 / 10

Buy "Cling cling" at HMV | CD Japan | iTunes