That’s it. SCANDAL. Not Best Of/SCABEST/SCANDAL’s Greatest Hits. Straight to the point in conjunction with the band’s ten years in the business of making music, and here’s to ten more.

This is their first greatest hits record since SCANDAL SHOW (that JPU release didn’t count) in 2012, with all songs voted in by fans being remastered for this double CD release, bar two new songs – HELLO and FREEDOM FIGHTERS. Nevertheless, this is still a mix tape. I’ve not spent time doing an A/B comparison, so I’ll accept that these songs have a slight breath of fresher air to them whether it’s obvious or not.

The reason I’m not too fazed by the band’s take on how the songs feel different due to how they are placed in the album is due to my iPod being set on shuffle whenever I listen to SCANDAL. And that’s like 7 years of track shuffling – so, nothing new here.

HELLO is a very pleasant tune that starts with an arpeggiated chord followed by MAMI’s trademark octaves. Another one of their ‘winter’ songs, the poignancy of the melody is brightened up by the briskness of the chords. Don’t expect anything Christmassy on this one.

FREEDOM FIGHTERS took my fancy more than HELLO the first time I listened to that badly recorded radio edit. Prolly the hardest SCANDAL song out there, this easily sits amongst the Onegais, Rainys and Metronomes that RINA and MAMI can conjure up. RINA’s frantic drumming coupled with MAMI’s guitar screams in between the verses show that these girls can still rock their arses off. The band had expressed their enthusiasm in playing this live for the overseas fans. I wonder which part of the world they are heading to next.

Check out comments on scabest47.com which kinda act as extended liner notes to the physical CD.