Tatsuro Yamashita - Ride on Time

Written 10/01/2025

I was poisoned. An ill omen fell about me like table cloth, white and sullen, shadowy. Dull was its tool of choice - dream-like ether neither lucid nor delusive - like gelatinous and ugly plant-like taste. Strong and bitter. "Hark," my dad said, and I snapped to life. He talked to me about my day. The rest was a blur; I love my dad, but this time I am high, so I cannot go to the store. He understands.

Upon playing, I was immediately overcome with bliss. The bass overcomes my person, and I fall forwards into my desk. It bludgeons me with three acts - complete with Tatsuro Yamashita, gleaming star and shining, standing above me and stomping his great rhythmic boot into my head in the final act. It was here I knew I loved RIDE ON TIME.

RIDE ON TIME is the kind of album that you decide your opinion of within the first song. Yamashita's charisma is infectious, front and center, powerful - like a monument. Its impeccable style and instrumentation are cocky and glamorous like polished gold and red velvet - you can feel like luxury at any point throughout it's runtime.

The composition of its tracklist feels so ridiculously masterful that it would overwhelm me at first glance. "SILENT SCREAMER" is decadently crazy and bedazzling, complete with bongo solos and whirring, fashionably 80s chorused electric guitar leads. My very first instinct when hearing Yamashita come in with that "Ride on time," is to explode with joy, like some proud spectre took over my being with its confidence and ectoplasmic glee. No matter what way it pushes forward, it tramples me with amazing feelings and guides me whichever way it wishes.

I love RIDE ON TIME, and I know it loves me. 10/10