Down In the Hole is Texas Pandaa's third album after their 2006 debut One Gleam After the Shadow and demonstrates a band who are wonderfully progressive in their availability and interaction with fans but also refining their music in an increasingly crowded genre. What that genre is depends on one's definition of the slow, poised and melodious tracks that Texas Pandaa produce with such care: shoegaze, post-rock, down tempo, ambient, romance-pop and indie. All could describe the mesmeric harmonies Asako and Mikiko produce backed dreamily by respective guitar and bass as well as Kaz on a supplemental guitar and Nadehiko on drums. Down In the Hole comes off the back of Days, retaining and refining everything that make the group more than just another self-indulgent ambient rock offering and shows a development of exactly what makes them special.
It demands repeated listens, at its best when left as ambient and unintrusive
The stand out entries come swiftly after the album's title track Down In the Hole which sports a catchy melody and child-like lyrics, evoking stories such as Alice in Wonderland or Wind in the Willows which follow from the delightful art that accompanies the album. Suddenly, the second track, is superbly paced: building from the start with a solemn guitar until the vocals cut in, heavy with nostalgia and a melancholy timbre that characterises the best of the album; the lyrics tell of an absent love and reconciliation but even in impressive English they pale to the atmosphere the track crafts and exhibits the greatest triumph of the album overall.
Dragonaut's first episode is full of breasts. The second episode is full of dragons. The third episode has breasts and dragons. This is of course entirely unsurprising given the character designer's previous works: Love Hina, Gravion and recently Witchblade; the seminal Stellvia of the Universe seemingly an exception to Makoto Uno's otherwise top-heavy résumé. Abnormally buoyant female appendages aside, Dragonaut's opening episodes are filled with confusing events, terrible CG wyrms and a slow-but-steady introduction to the cold-clinical world the series inhabits.
supposed secret labs and bustling command centres are rendered with a yawn rather than any flair
"Competent" is the best way to describe the series. It bears all the hallmarks of a two season show that isn't prepared to tip its hand at the outset. The hook centres on a trio of creatures that came to earth from outer-space, destroying the protagonist's spacecraft and family along the way. Modi operandi set, time jumps several years into the future when Earth is threatened, people actualise/synchronise/ride mechanical dragons and the once young protagonist now has a barrel full of angst to carry around. Terminology such as "Album", "Dragonaut", "D-Project" and "ISDA" are scattered liberally throughout the dialogue to inject a kind of faux mysticism to the proceedings but fundamentally, nothing is meritorious.
