Sawa - 333 15 May 2009
Ever play the Nintendo DS game The World Ends With You TWEWY? If so then you’ve heard Sawa. She performed eight songs for the game, including its opening theme song, and wrote the lyrics for almost every other song. This all happened a few months after Sawa began her solo career in 2006. Nintendo brought her it for TWEWY where she worked closely with Takeharu Ishimoto on the soundtrack.After that Sawa returned to performing on her own, this time with a stable band line-up around her. 333 takes the variety of TWEWY’s soundtrack and stretches it even farther. Sawa uses her debut album to explore rock, pop, punk, electronica, soft acoustic melodies, guttural growling, all layered with her honest and sometimes blunt lyrics that are reminiscent of 1990’s American rock. She sings every song in English. Sawa’s English is not as clear as Rie Fu or Utada Hikaru, but she is still leaps and bounds above other Japanese musicians who try to use English; you’ll have to listen closely to catch her small and few grammatical mistakes.333 is a wonderful debut album for showcasing such a wide spectrum of variety and comfort with all manner of compositions. Unfortunately Sawa has not released much since.