Love Is Around

Tranzam had the players to impress: a band built around former Happenings Four members, with a formidable rhythm section. Yet Love Is Around remains oddly hard to pin down. The theme-song assignments sometimes make its arrangements feel overworked, and its polish can leave surprisingly little behind.

Then comes “Minami no Shima Kara.” Its faintly awkward balance is precisely the appeal—a soft, bittersweet floater that seems both impossibly cool and a little ungainly. A straight-A performance may be admirable; this peculiar song is the one I want to hear again.