Summer Days

This is twilight rather than high noon. The rhythms have slowed, and Tokuo Nakano's warm vocal carries a new plainness alongside the sheen of eighties production. “Koi no Magic” folds a memory of the band's old buoyancy into the newer sound. On “Iwasenaide,” a digital shuffle in the synth bass meets a lyric with a sharper edge.

Then “Lover's Moon” opens with a soft, shaded melody. The moon at two in the morning throws light over a place where there seems nowhere left to go. After years of maintaining their own identity through changing styles, Sentimental City Romance had arrived at a record that can stand beside City Magic: a quiet answer to their earlier optimism.