The Alpha -- Yume Jikake Romance（夢じかけロマンス）

From Discogs

I gotta admit that I was immediately drawn in by that album cover.

Well, the name also grabbed my attention. The Alpha! Sounds like some super secret organization like the Freemasons in a sci-fi show. But the above you see is the first of their three original albums "Sensation" from December 1985.

The Alpha first formed in 1982 with vocalist/guitarist Keisuke Murakami（村上啓介）, synthesizer operator Tatsunari Yakabe（矢賀部竜成）, bassist Teruo Takahama（高浜輝夫）and drummer Kunihiro Sato（佐藤邦治）under the name ALPHA. The band then teamed up with vocalist/pianist Ikumi Goto（後藤郁美）and musician Minoru Komorita（小森田実）on the latter's project album "Doki Doki Talking"（ドキドキTalking）which earned them an award at the Yamaha Popular Song Contest (PopCon). In 1983, Goto formally joined the band and then ALPHA and Komorita worked together once more to win the Grand Prize with the song "Foreigner"（フォリナー）which became their first single. Guitarist Goro Tameyama（為山五朗）would join later as a support member. The officially-named Minoru Komorita & ALPHA would release one more single that year titled "Moonlight Dance".

However in 1984, ALPHA and Komorita parted ways with the band providing support to pop duo Chage & Aska. Then in November 1985, ALPHA decided to add that definite article to become The Alpha to release their first single under that new name "Yume Jikake Romance" (Dreaming Romance). Listening to some of the tracks on "Sensation" which contains that first single, it seems like The Alpha enjoyed dabbling in New Wave, urban pop/rock, synthpop, and even a bit of Kazuhiro Nishimatsu-like（西松一博）spacy jazz for one track at least.

But with the 2nd track, "Yume Jikake Romance", it's all about the New Wave and rock meshed together. I suddenly got all sorts of memories of the UK band The Fixx on this one, and maybe even a bit of TM Network. I don't know if there are any YouTube videos showing The Alpha on a concert stage but I could imagine vocalist Murakami, who composed the music to this one, strutting all around and sounding a little like Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）. Aska himself provided the lyrics to "Yume Jikake Romance".

Along with those three albums, The Alpha managed to release two more singles until they finally broke up in 1989. The members went onto other projects including Murakami who pursued a solo career.