Album Title: All Alone With You Anime Title: Psycho-Pass Artist: EGOIST: chelly & ryo Catalog Number: SRCL-8240 Release Type: OP/ED Single Release Date: March 06, 2013 Purchase at: CDJapan

Track Title Artist Time 01. All Alone With You EGOIST 5:50 02. elbadaernU EGOIST 4:11 03. All Alone With You (TV Edit) EGOIST 1:33 04. All Alone With You -Instrumental- EGOIST 5:50 05. elbadaernU -Instrumental- EGOIST 4:11 06. All Alone With You (TV Edit) -Instrumental- EGOIST 1:31

Review: Every episode of Psycho-Pass takes me down sobering alleyways and dank corridors that become more frightening as they build a sense of dread for what’s to come. The world, already shown in an increasingly harsh, unforgiving light, becomes that much darker and leaves me empathizing with the hapless cast as the struggle turns away from opposing an unrelenting, uncompromising ideologue to one that opposes society’s cold judgment altogether. As this gloomy atmosphere lingers, chelly’s voice bubbles forth, propelled by ryo’s (of supercell) lyrics and composition. Together, the two drive the point home in the ED theme, “All Alone With You,” in a manner that is starkly bleak and absolutely mesmerizing.

From the haze that shrouds Psycho-Pass’s twists and turns, a lonely piano line emerges, its tone plaintive and filled with a great longing. Chelly’s voice then joins in, murmuring a lament as she expresses an existence in an uncaring, indifferent world bereft of warmth, love, and hope, doing in so in a way that’s captivating and profound. The sadness lingers in the verses as chelly navigates the despondent road leading up to the chorus, and from her tone, she’s weighted down by the indifference, letting loose a quiet sigh as she feels resigned to her fate.

With a short pause, the feeling of stress and desperation that’s built up in the singer are unleashed in a cry that resounds with anguish, calling out to anyone who even feels or displays the slightest trace of empathy towards her. She channels the loneliness nicely and while I do think the use of the electric guitar in the chorus distracts from the melancholia, the song as a whole is hauntingly beautiful in light of chelly’s heartfelt struggle to rail against apathy as she trudges onwards.

In light of how well “All Alone With You” stirs my emotions with its sublime, tragic aura, the next song, “elbadaernU” (or “unreadable” backwards) is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster as it jerks me from that pool of melancholia into something far more unpleasant. I’ve never been a fan of the kind of high-energy electro-synth pop dubstep stuff that other people seem to be into these days, so when I listen to “elbadaernU,” the only word that’s fit to describe it would be “obnoxious”: obnoxiousness in the form of synthy bumps, wails, and grinds, and obnoxiousness in the form of a dull, lackluster vocal performance. Where “All Alone With You” bitterly mourns an existence in a world that lacks emotion, “elbadaernU” ironically makes the misstep of being the very thing its preceding track protests against as it’s content to toss a barrage of sound that contribute little to the creation of something wonderful and meaningful.

Oh well. It’s not like I’ve had high expectations for B-sides anyway. But the A-side, “All Alone With You,” allows the Psycho-Pass’s sentiments to sink in in a way that’s thoughtful, but intense as the feelings of loneliness and desperation linger on, leaving me to wonder just how far they can build up within the characters before the characters snap altogether.

Rating: Decent

Psycho-Pass ED 2 – All Alone With You



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