Gundam Card Game previews Perfume’s song, “Solar Wind”. And it sounds a lot like a song we’ve heard before.

Back in April, Perfume had announced that a brand new song of theirs would feature as a tie-in with Gundam Card Game, but we had no title for the song and no snippet. But [cue RuPaul] the time has come. And we now have both.

The song is titled “Solar Wind” and it turns out that we’ve actually heard this song before.

“Solar Wind” sure sounds a lot like “Ima Ima Ima”, don’t it?

To say I felt deflated upon hearing this song would be an understatement. Especially after the underwhelming snippet of “Meguri Loop” we heard a few weeks ago.

We did not need another “Ima Ima Ima”. At least not this soon. We have “Ima Ima Ima” at home already and we really like it. I would say I’m confused by Yasutaka Nakata producing a song which sounds identical to “Ima Ima Ima” not even a year after “Ima Ima Ima”. But in my review of “Nebula Romance”, I came to a realisation — Nakata’s creative bubble is very small. And I think this is why Perfume’s music hasn’t evolved at the rate in which it should have. Why Perfume’s songs are always about the same things. And why we have now ended up with a variant of “Ima Ima Ima” not even a year after we first heard “Ima Ima Ima”. I’m sure there is every chance that the full song could feature whole sections which make the song feel different and distinct, but I’m not gonna stay with the expectation that it won’t and leave room to be pleasantly surprised. And the (other) annoying thing about this, is that despite the clear similarities between “Ima Ima Ima” and “Solar Wind” and how easy they are to mashup, mix and transition between — we won’t get a mix of these 2 songs on any tour. The same way we never got a mix of “Polyrhythm” and “Polygon Wave”, even though it was such an obvious thing to do.

Between “Temu Factory -Denzo Ningen-”, “Meguri Loop” and “Solar Wind”, Perfume really aren’t doing a good job of selling Nebula Romance: Part 2. The knees of “Nebula Romance” are buckling under the weight of trying to carry this album right now.

I’ve found the rollout of Perfume’s music to be wonky since “Polygon Wave”. But this Nebula Romance rollout really is a bit of a mess. I think that splitting the album into 2 parts may not have been the best idea under whatever this release strategy is. Perfume should have just released these tie-in songs as singles over a 2 year period and then dropped Nebula Romance. BUT…been super selective with the tracklisting and not included all of the singles. Team Perfume freeing themselves from the obligation to include all of the singles would allow them to approach Nebula Romance as a body of work — which I think was supposed to be the idea with this shit in the first place, but that seems to have gone out the window a little now.

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💿 Album reviews: Game | Complete Best | Triangle | LEVEL3 | JPN | Cosmic Explorer | The Best “P Cubed” | Future Pop | Plasma | Nebula Romance: Part 1

🎛️ Extended Mixes: Mawaru Kagami | Moon | Cosmic Treat | Nebula Romance