We’ve been taking several listens to Koizumi’s second single, In Love With The Enemy, from their forthcoming debut EP out latest this year. We here at Send Me Your Ears were absolutely enthralled by this powerful rock track.
Described by the band as if Juliet ever wrote a song about Romeo, this would be it. In Love With The Enemy is abou being told that the person you are in love with is no good for you and you just don’t hear it or don’t want to listen.
The song starts with some glorious orchestral strings that briefly make you think you’re going to be listening to a classical gentle ballad. One the punchy bass and electric guitar come in though, you are in no doubt that you’re in for one hell of a rock ride!
Lead singer, Josie Koizumi, has a voice that means business. Her powerful and passionate vocals cut through beautifully and reminded us in places of Kate Bush or Hayley Williams from Paramore. The whole track had a definite Evanescence feel to it and we were supremely impressed with the vocals and musicianship throughout this three minute commercial sounding rock song.
There some fantastic use of stops in the early part of the song to build tension and the whole track has a lovely bright feel to it. It’s punchy and powerful with some glorious rise and fall. This song easily maintained our interest for several listens.
We particularly liked the half time sections and the choice of notes in the extremely well executed guitar solo were just awesome. The repetition with variation towards the end of the solo really helped to build excitement before those powerful lead vocals belted back in for the final section.
In places feeling a little like melodic metal, in places, even a little Scandinavian (although they’re from Chicago!), Koizumi clearly are sticking the proverbial finger up at the idea of sticking to one genre of music and they blend their influences effortlessly.
From a production perspective, this is a great track that they have clearly worked hard on. We’d suggest, to our ears, a tiny boost around 90Hz to bring out a little extra punch in the low end. Perhaps consider a tiny boost around 7-8kHz and maybe a boost around 250-300Hz for some extra warmth. It may also be an idea to add a little extra compression to get a bit more volume out of the overall track which sits just slightly below commercial releases of a similar style in its output levels.
One of our favourites this week, Koizumi are most definitely One To Watch. With powerful, well delivered and passionate vocals, a powerful rhythm section and a very characterful solo guitarist, these guys tick all the boxes for us. Great stuff!