face to ace -- Rain

 

Comfortably cool out there although I figure that I will have to close the window fairly soon. Anyways, a good Monday to all of you.

Up to now, there have been just two articles written about the band face to ace which seems to have had a fairly wide range of music to tackle: from AOR to rock to synthpop. Contributor nikala was the first to introduce us to the works of ACE and Kurage Honda（本田海月）with their "Non-fiction" from 2003, and then I took a hand several years later with their 2004 "Kaleido-Parade". I'm still trying to get a grasp of their overall sound, though.

face to ace's 4th single from November 2002 is "Rain" which is a steadfast number that kinda rumbles subtly between rock and synthpop with some atmospheric 1980s feeling, thanks to that bass synth. Considering the song's moodiness, I'd assumed that it became a theme song for a conspiracy-based anime or J-Drama, but it was actually as an ending theme for the long-running late-night talk variety show "Downtown Deluxe"（ダウンタウンDX）on NTV. Words and music were provided by ACE.

In March 2019, the band released "Salvage Phase 1", an album consisting of new material and self-covers of some of their early stuff, and "Rain" was one of the latter. It sounds like there was a little more in the way of bells and whistles added to this new version including an added moody and synthy intro. The original single hit No. 86 on Oricon, by the way.