Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday

There’s nothing laidback about the songs on 2021’s Lazy Sunday. Saucy Dog’s fifth mini-album finds the Osaka-born band tackling heavier emotions over its ‘90s-era J-rock-inspired sound. In previous releases, the trio used everyday topics as jumping-off points to observations about appreciating life’s simple joys and the importance of persevering in the face of minor setbacks. While Lazy Sunday maintains the group’s familiar speed, the lyrics here ring with heartbreak and self-doubt, and Shinya Ishihara’s singing increases in intensity. This newfound dramatic flair manifests most clearly in Saucy Dog’s breakthrough hit, “Cinderella Boy,” which achieved massive streaming numbers and led to arena gigs. The group plays a seemingly easygoing melody—complete with a funky guitar solo midway through—but Ishihara’s words betray the sonic mood. He focuses on the end of a relationship and the ensuing confusion. Vocally, Ishihara pushes past the relaxed tone of previous Saucy Dog mini-albums and almost reaches a scream near the song’s climax. It isn’t Ishihara’s usual vocal comfort zone, but the move makes the heartache at its center feel more palpable. It’s an approach Ishihara further fleshes out on the slower stroll of “Respawn” and the stripped-down acoustic ballad “Tokyo.” Even when he and his Saucy Dog bandmates, bassist Akizawa Kazuki and drummer Seto Yuika, pick up the pace on “Kimi Ga Inai,” Ishihara keeps pushing his vocals toward a harried delivery, bringing to mind the quick near-spoken-word delivery of emo J-rock predecessors such as indigo la End. The skilled musicianship and knack for catchy melodies the trio introduced in the years prior remain, but Lazy Sunday pairs them with an emotional rawness that makes the music all the more relatable.

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