Girls Dead Monster - Crow Song insert song single

If you don't know who Girls Dead Monster are already, then... what's wrong with you?! In all seriousness, GalDeMo (in their shortened form) are the four-piece all-girl band which inhabits the world of Angel Beats! Given that this foursome have already strutted their stuff in the show's opening episodes to great effect, I suppose it's none too surprising to see their popularity cashed in on quickly via the release of this insert song single.


The CD kicks off with Crow Song itself, the song showcased most impressively by the show's opening episode. After a pretty generic pop-rock start to the track, things really kick off around forty seconds in with a fantastic refrain which catches the ear enough to carry the track onwards and upwards. While it admittedly loses its way and slips back towards the generic at times, the general effect is of an uplifting and oddly addictive effort that still manages to sound suitably amateur to fit Girls Dead Monster's status within the show itself.

Following up on that early success is the show's supposed fan favourite tune from the band, Alchemy, which does certainly manage to sound more polished and coherent than the first track. While it doesn't quite carry Crow Song's energy it does manage to carry a catchy tune to make for another eminently enjoyable effort that admittedly probably won't live as long in the memory as its immediate predecessor.

Finally, the disc closes out with a huge change in tone courtesy of the solo ballad My Song, performed in-series by the band's lead singer Iwasawa, and marking a major turning point in both her brief story within the show and for the series as a whole. It's actually difficult to gauge how effective the track is when its association with the scene which accompanies it within Angel Beats! is still so fresh in my mind, but if anything that memory makes the song all the more powerful in my head. I'm not particularly a huge fan of ballads (particularly within Japanese pop music), but this is perhaps as good an example as any, threatening to tug at your heart strings a little as it does with its powerful lyrical performance.

Considering that my first thought upon seeing the opener of Angel Beats! was "I wonder when we'll get these songs on CD", I'm certainly more than a little happy to see my request answered so quickly, and all of the three tracks on show here are likely strong enough to be listened to plenty of times without boring. Of course, the natural comparisons will probably be how Girls Dead Monster compares to K-ON!'s Houkago Tea Time, but to be quite frank it isn't even vaguely fair to compare the two, if only on the tone and content of the music itself. I'd be the first to admit that K-ON!'s uber-catchy saccharine pop-rock sticks in the mind more easily, but that doesn't diminish the enjoyable qualities of Crow Song one little bit.