You know those kids who are too smart, too beautiful, or too talented for their own good?

Asuca Hayashi is one of them. Only seventeen, this half-Japanese, half-Chinese trilingual girl is gifted with a voice that sounds like it should be coming out of someone much older: it's powerful, emotional, and raw, allowing her to display a wide range of vocal ability in her material.

It's a shame, then, that her material has seemingly been decreasing in quality with each release. While her debut single ake-kaze, released in 2003 when Hayashi was only thirteen, and some of her earlier releases allowed her to showcase both her spectacular voice and well-written material, her more recent tracks have been lacking in either.

tsunaide is Hayashi's first mini-album, released in early 2003. Continuing the downward spiral -- both material-and-sales-wise -- that Hayashi's found herself caught in, the six-track disc peaked at #192 its first and only week on Japan's Oricon charts.

Of the six tracks here, three are original (tracks 1, 2, and 3, with the first two being composed by Hayashi herself), two were already included on the first-pressings of Hayashi's first two albums (tracks 4 and 5), and one is a "new" live track (track 6) -- coupled with the subpar material offered, this lack of new material comes as an extreme disappointment (especially for those who already own the previously-mentioned albums).

The major problem areas arise, then, with the quality of the material. taisetsu ni shiyou ne is a bland, uninspired piece of generic pop music that tries its hardest to mix a standard pop beat and some synthesized stuff with the organic, acoustic material offered by singer/songwriters: while it succeeds at times, the overall effect is rather underwhelming, especially since there seems to be an imbalance in volume between Hayashi herself and her backing, which is made worse by the fact that Hayashi isn't putting much into her performance. The overly-long running-time also hurts the song, given that it's incredibly formulaic.

SNOWDROP is a complete turnaround from the first track, a still-generic piano-and-orchestra ballad that follows all the conventions to a T: softer, lightly-backed verses? Check. Gradual build-up to the chorus, which adds more to the instrumentation while building slightly in intensity each time it's repeated? Check. Introduction of more instruments in the second verse (acoustic guitar and a drum beat)? Check. Instrumental break followed by a soft build-up to the final chorus(es)? Check. While the sparse instrumentation should give Hayashi room to breathe and display a bit more of her voice, she instead plays it safe yet again, barely changing anything about her performance the entire way through the song. It's pretty, but hardly impressive or memorable.

hitotsubu no tane ~Love the Earth~ is the pinnacle of the disc's material, and probably the best track here. Like Hitomi Shimatani's I will, the song blends traditional world music influences (lots of ethereal-sounding effects, random male voices chanting in some tribal tongue) and blends them with lovely orchestral backing that's enough so that the song isn't riding on Hayashi's voice alone, but also allows Hayashi plenty of room to roam -- and roam she does, relentlessly belting out her lines above the epic backing, which tones down a bit an adds in some (bongo?) drums during the second verse before building to an almost operatic climax where Hayashi climbs a mountain of backing voices before again singing from her peak and ending the song with a dramatic flourish of violin and drums.

The two acoustic versions offered to us are a waste of space, honestly. I suppose they're a good value if one doesn't own Hayashi's two previous albums, but even then, they aren't that impressive. ake-kaze's strips the song (whose music video can be found on the included DVD) of all that made it good -- a lush orchestral backing with a slight rock edge -- and replaces it with a bland acoustic guitar line. The sparse instrumentation allows for Hayashi's voice to be well-displayed, but even that isn't all that impressive, given that it's easy to find fault when there's little to hide vocal hiccups. The piano version of mou ichido anata ni aitai does the same thing, but with a piano. In this case, there's a little bit more to like, since not only is the piano part impressive and beautiful, it works well with Hayashi's vocals, which were re-recorded for this track. She doesn't go overboard in her performance, but instead uses both her softer side and her loud, more belter-ish halves well.

The live version of jibun shinjite (recorded at a performance given at Osaka's Nanba Hatch venue in August 2004) is impressive. The song, for the most part, sounds like the original (a gentle, simple track with a sort of nursery-rhyme sound-effect in the background, a simple acoustic-guitar line and the occasional intervention of another guitar), but it's Hayashi's near pitch-perfect performance that makes the song. She's impressive both on CD and live, and the inclusion of this track solidifies that fact for anyone who may have been doubting.

As much as I'd like to recommend this album, I can't -- the new material here (with the exception of track three) suffers in both quality of composition/arrangement and vocals, and the other included tracks -- two of which are pretty enough -- just don't make the grade. Buy a full album or DVD to get more of the Hayashi experience, because what's offered here isn't worth it.

Asuca Hayashi: "tsunaide"
[ CD+DVD | TOCT-22257 | ¥2,500 | 2005.03.02 ]

01. taisetsu ni shiyou ne [ 5:24 ]
02. SNOWDROP [ 5:17 ]
03. hitotsubu no tane ~Love the Earth~ [ 5:56 ]
04. ake-kaze (Acoustic Version) [ 3:36 ]
05. mou ichido anata ni aitai (Piano Acoustic Verison) [ 4:50 ]
06. jibun shinjite (Live Version) [ 4:57 ]

[ http://www.asuca.jp/ ]

* Review title note: "tsunaide" translates to "tie together" -- given the lack of quality material here, those ties are starting to lose hold and weaken.

Recommended: No