Tales of Hearts: Eternal Tomorrow – Deen – Satomi Takasugi

	Album Title: Tales of Hearts: Eternal Tomorrow – Deen
	Record Label: BMG Japan
	Catalog No.: BVCR-19137
	Release Date: December 10, 2008
	Purchase: Buy at CDJapan

Overview

After two years of silence and over ten years after the release of Tales of Destiny‘s theme song “To Be a Dream”, the popular three-man band DEEN return to Namco’s latest entry of the Tales series. They perform the opening theme of Tales of Hearts, the rock ballad “Eternal Tomorrow”. Released on December 10th, the single reached #6 in the Oricon weekly single charts. Included with the main song are two bonus tracks as well as two instrumental versions. Let’s take a closer look.

Body

“Eternal Tomorrow / Eien no Ashita” begins on a playful note with an introduction featuring bells and string. Subsequently Ikemori’s vocals set in to perform the first section, which slowly and harmoniously builds up until the song reaches its full power around 1:20. The music then flows flawlessly together with the vocals and there is a nice guitar solo around 2:50. The overall atmosphere, however, is much more mellow and cautious compared to previous theme songs. But that’s one of the strong points here; it’s very emotional and simpatico. While the percussion is held down in the background acoustic guitar, strings and piano dominate the track together with Ikemori’s harmonious singing.

The second track of the single is called “Distant Summer Dream / Tooi Natsu no Yume”, a ballad performed by acoustic guitar and mellow strings. While the overall song sounds almost like an lullaby, it can put you to sleep if you listen carefully; it’s hardly bad and has a lot of emotion within, but the real “something” is missing here somehow. Neveless, it serves as a nice bonus track with a good chill out feeling.

The remaining songs are bonus tracks as well. On the third track there is the original theme song from 1997’s Tales of Destiny, “To Be a Dream / Yume De Aru You Ni”, in its shortened version. There are also two instrumental renditions of the first two tracks to sing along. While these tracks are nothing spectacular at all, it serves well to round off the disc.

Summary

Tales of Hearts‘ “Eternal Tomorrow / Eien no Ashita” serves as a beautiful and well performed theme song. which resembles its predecessor “Yume De Aru You Ni” in many ways; it’s quite a feeling of nostalgia if you are familiar with Tales of Destiny. It’ll not knock off your socks, but its definitely a positive and smooth song which fits nicely during the context of the game. Together with the remaining songs, this disc is a positive listen. DEEN shows once again that their ability of creating strong ballads has not faded over the years. So open your mind and let their music reach your hearts.

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