Carbonic Acid is the doujin circle project of someone who has used the alias of 炭酸, which translates to… uh, well… Carbonic Acid. In reality, this is the solo project of… 仁耶 (Jinya), or Jinya747. Yes, that Jinya, the Jinya from Unlucky Morpheus. When I understood that, I immediately realized why this guitar work felt like it was designed to blow you to pieces and leave you with a smile.
H2CO3
I said I would cover this circle as soon as I got my hands on Melody of Calamity - this turned out to be a months-long ordeal and even turned into a call for help, but I eventually got insanely, extremely lucky; one copy for sale, used on Suruga-ya, showed up in mid-May. As it turns out, they use the term “used” very liberally; the disc looks pristine, it must have been opened maybe once.
Either way, here we are! 3 weeks of waiting for shipping and customs have been more than worth it! I now have the entire Carbonic Acid discography as far as Touhou is concerned, which consists of 1.5 albums: Melody of Calamity and Melody of Blast.
I say 1.5 and not 2, because they’re both quite short albums and Blast re-published the two vocal tracks that were in Calamity; Blind Alley and Cluster of Cluster, both with 湯毛 (Yuge) on the vocals. You can think of both Melody of albums as extensions of each other, in a sense.
Speaking of the vocals, Yuge’s voice is one of those perfect fits for Jinya’s guitars that I can’t dissociate one from the other now. They are Carbonic Acid, even if they each went their separate ways since.
Melody of Calamity
Even within the already niche realm of Touhou music, Carbonic Acid is not a name that pops up as often as it should. Melody of Calamity is a rare album that people don’t realize exist unless they are as terminally nerdy as I am and they obsessively search and scour the web for every scrap of information there is.
So for me to even have a physical copy of this album now is nothing short of a miracle for me. When I listened to it for the first time, each track just put smile after smile, headbang after headbang, big ol’ feelings that moved me almost to tears. Banger, banger, banger, banger, one after the other, not one miss.
Have you ever had the feeling where it goes, This is exactly how good I imagined it would be after listening to a new album? That. That’s what Calamity left me with. It’s a winner, just as Blast is, and nearly anything involving Jinya.
The only thing I could genuinely complain about is mixing issues. Calamity is mixed pretty loud, a little like some of the discs from the Loudness Wars, but I’m willing to be forgiving to the very first Carbonic Acid album, clearly put together and mixed by amateurs. After all, Death Magnetic this is not.
Melody of Calamity is, officially and according to the booklet, a 6-track album. There’s a 7th at the end technically, if you wanna call it that, but it’s a 9-second blooper where they mess with the sax. Yes, there’s a sax in this album; it’s on Track 2, Blow, and I never thought a saxophonist playing Wind God Girl over Jinya’s frantic shredding would be this much fun to listen to.
I don’t like to refer to anything, especially Carbonic Acid, as just “rock” albums. And you won’t catch me use the “J-” prefix here; it’s a meaningless moniker in this case.
Jinya was already a skilled guitarist when these two albums came out in 2010, and if you’ve ever heard his contributions to later Unlucky Morpheus albums or visited his YouTube channel, you’ll find he’s only gotten better.
I don’t think there’s a style of rock or metal Jinya can’t do. From ballads and unplugged to power and speed metal, not to mention he’s effing amazing when you let him go off on a solo. You could say, “as any good guitarist should,” but really, sincerely. Them solos are good. Must be the talent of the youngest, which most others at Unlucky Morpheus seem to love reminding him about. (Hey, what’s a band if the members don’t give you s— all the time, huh?)
Out like a blast
Carbonic Acid is not dead and Jinya is definitely far from done making music, but Melody of Calamity and Melody of Blast are, as far as I’m aware, the only two Carbonic Acid albums with anything to do with Touhou. Which means there’s only one way to get more; gotta get down the rabbit hole of Unlucky Morpheus’s album history. And they, too, seem to have distanced themselves from Touhou; the last UM Touhou release was Hypothetical Box ACT3 in 2019; they have since focused on tours, concerts, and their own original music.
And you know what? That’s OK. If they disbanded tomorrow or chose not to ever do any more Touhou arranges, they have all left their mark on the fandom in incredible ways. But Jinya and Yuge, in particular, raise emotions and feelings that I don’t get elsewhere, even from UM.
Carbonic Acid is 11 tracks, not counting the two repeats and the 9-second ♫ toot toot ♪ at the end of Calamity. But each of those 11 tracks is played at 100% volume with 200% power. It’s the side of metal that’s uplifting and positive. It’s like your favorite anime openings or post-Adventure 1 Sonic soundtracks. It wouldn’t sound too out of place in a Yakuza (Like a Dragon) game, especially the heavier stuff like world.
In short, this is stuff I genuinely couldn’t get tired of; because it does the opposite. It brings the energy back. So what if there isn’t more of it? Not every Touhou artist can be like 天音 / Amane - as awesome as Amane is - and be endless factories of music production.
I appreciate what I have, and if what I have is a short playlist that’s over in 45 minutes, then I’ll replay it, over and over, just as better and more skilled Touhou fans than myself can replay the games, over and over.
Standout tracks
(Melody of Calamity) Melody of Calamity
Track 1 shares a title with the album name. Jinya immediately hits you with everything you expect from an album with Hina Kagiyama on the cover: punchy guitars arranging Dark Road, Hina’s stage theme. If you haven’t heard his work before, let this track be your introduction to what Jinya can do.
(Melody of Calamity) Blow
Look, let me put it this way: Speed metal, 162 BPM, sax, Wind God Girl. You have to hear it for yourself, my words can’t do this justice. If you get this, you get it.
So good I might tell my adopted children this is Aya Shameimaru’s real theme song. (I’m kidding. In this house, we respect ZUN. We all owe to him.)
(Melody of Calamity) world
This is Eastern Forgathering Dream, the credits theme in Immaterial and Missing Power, with synth brass playing the main melody while Jinya accompanies with a very thrash metal approach to shredding and an intro that sounds so heavy, it’s almost like Kazuma Kiryu is about to trade blows with Suika Ibuki. I don’t know who handled the drums, but they sound really good too.
The synth brass felt out of place at first, but they grew on me in a very, “Oh yeah, this is Touhou” way, as did the sudden appearance of the backup choirs near the end. I’d pay for a remastered and properly mixed version of this track…
(Both albums) Blind Alley
Released as Track 3 of both Calamity and Blast, Blind Alley features Yuge’s vocals over a fast-paced arrange of Sanae Kochiya’s theme, Faith is for the Transient People. I wish my physical copies came with lyrics, because I can’t find them anywhere… Either way, my ears enjoy this a lot.
(Melody of Blast) Don’t stop sparks
♫ ♪ MA-STER-SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK ♪
How can you not get hyped for Jinya and Yuge’s rendition of Love-Colored Master Spark when the latter screams that in the intro? The final track of Melody of Blast and by far my favorite Carbonic Acid track, I get hype and excited every single time I hear it. And so should you, or so I hope!!!
Album and Song details
Circle: Carbonic Acid
Albums:
- Melody of Calamity, released 2010/05/05 (M3-2010 Spring)
- Melody of Blast, released 2010/08/14 (Comiket 78)
Tracks:
- Calamity: 6 (+ 9 second blooper)
- Blast: 7
Genre: Metal (power metal, speed metal)
Type: Instrumental (most tracks on Calamity), Vocal (most tracks on Blast)
Artists:
- Guitars, bass, mixing, lyrics: 仁耶 / Jinya
- Alto sax: V.Rain
- Vocals: 湯毛 / Yuge
- Mastering: 龍5150 (Calamity), APPO (Blast)
Track details: don’t wanna retype all that, here’s a screencap from my database lol
