Ciel nosurge Genometric Concert Vol.2 -Emotional Songs- is the second part of the vocal albums for Gust’s episodic game Ciel nosurge ~A Song Offered to the Lost Planet~. As it is an expansion for an existing game, the sound that was so characteristic of its predecessor album, the Ciel nosurge Genometric Concert vol. 1 -Pact Songs-, is also present here. While Akiko Shikata didn’t return for this album, Haruka Shimotsuki and Minami Kizuki reprised their roles, and Noriko Mitose also featured as a vocalist. The compositions were done by Shimotsuki herself, industry veteran Yoshitaka Hirota, and popular doujin musician Morrigan. However, does the album still maintain the high standards its predecessors are known for, or do the new composers and the lack of Shikata here bring down the album?
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I’d strongly advise listening to this album’s predecessor and reading its review first to understand the context, as the Ar tonelico and Ciel nosurge songs depend heavily on context to achieve their full impact, despite being enjoyable on their own. Additionally, the first review also works as an introduction to the world of the game, explaining its unique terms and introducing its major characters, so a reader would be lost reading this one first. In other words, this review is a direct sequel to that of the first volume, so please make sure to read and listen to volume 1 before starting volume 2.
Now then, I have to add that Ciel nosurge’s story is divided so far into three arcs: the Trials Arc, the Downfall Arc and the Empress Arc. Volume 1 contained the songs that were used in each of the Trials Arc chapters, while this album contains all of the songs used in the Downfall Arc. From the name alone, you might imagine that some unpleasant events take place during this volume, and you will see this unfold as you read on.
The first song we come across in this album is a piece called “Beautiful World”. Composed and arranged by Yoshitaka Hirota and sung by Minami Kizuki, this piece is as beautiful as its name suggests. Opening with a soft chorus, Kizuki begins singing over the backdrop of a calm piano line, percussion, and, upon reaching the second verse, strings. Then the song reaches its hook: Kizuki singing in Japanese with a beautiful Emotional Song Pact chorus behind her, which ends with the instrumentation falling silent as she sings the song’s name. The song then gives way to an instrumental bridge followed by a heavenly chorus, which paves the way for the song to repeat its structure to the end. I personally wasn’t very fond of Kizuki before this, but her singing sounds strong, warm, and motherly here and once again showcases her Shima-Uta style. The instrumentation is mostly programmed, but it still does a good job of conveying the emotions the song is supposed to transmit: belief in the world and its people, and wishing for them to become even more beautiful in the future.
As for context, this song is sung by Kanoyeel.kkll.Preciel (who will be referred to as Kanon henceforth) during the time she and her political rival, Ionasal (Ion), were at the city of Almetica. As Ion and her friends were being pursued by PLASMA, the secret organization that has a role akin to that of the CIA in the Ciel nosurge world, Kanon decided to help them escape their clutches by teleporting them to another floating city, or Colon. She also did this to teleport herself to a faraway place called the Genomirai Research Institute, which she did to uncover secrets about her birth that had been withheld, giving rise to rumors that both she and Ion were unfit to be Empress candidates. Neither Kanon herself nor the Genom she synchronized for the singing of this song, ALMETICA, had the energy necessary to execute the teleportation, so ALMETICA temporarily took control of the minds of the citizens of its namesake city, who were in the middle of a festival celebrating the Genoms, and made them sing this song along with Kanon to transmit the power of their feelings to her, making the teleportation possible.
The second song of the album, “Code Ethes Wei (Class::ETHES_WEI=>extends.COMMUNI_SAT/.)”, is sung and composed by Haruka Shimotsuki, with the arrangement by Eichiro Yanagi. It basically continues the trend Shimotsuki established for Nay’s character in Vol. 1. The song opens with Shimotsuki singing in an uplifting way before moving on to a more mellow vocal passage over a soft piano and violin melody with strong Japanese nuances. After this, some choruses in Emotional Song Pact are added, after which she repeats the previous section but now with some percussion added and with the rhythm slightly increasing in speed, as well as some koto parts; she ends this section by raising her tone slightly and letting the entire song fall silent. This gives way to the climax of the song, which she herself described as “if the camera turned away from the singer and focused into the skies above her”, and I have to say it’s quite true: the melody and singing change as if taking off from the ground; the choruses are replaced by Bulgarian-styled choirs, which are later combined with her normal choruses singing a line in REON-4213. After a very nice bridge, the song repeats the opening with some variations in the percussion; the silence prior to the climax has the percussion louder than the first time. The climax is extended a bit before giving way to the end of the song, a short piano melody. Initially the song sounds uplifting, then gives off a feeling of doubt and unease, but it soars again upon reaching its climax. There is a good reason for this, as you will see while reading the background and context for it.
After they escaped from Almetica, Ion and her friends arrived at Colon Fourseason, the most famous and hardest Colon to gain residency in; pretty much all its inhabitants were rich, powerful, and famous. During their stay, under the protection of the hacker collective that rebels against PLASMA called Quantize, they lived in the house of one of Cas’ old friends, Sarly, who was the daughter of Nepseal, who died shortly after the events related to Neptlude. However, they discovered that Sarly had little time remaining due to a terrible sickness that had been drawing her closer and closer to death. Additionally, a researcher called Zillillium Rimonite (Zill), who also worked as a teacher at the Colon’s prestigious school, had been conducting suspicious activities and was apparently in league with REON after the AI escaped confinement following the Neptlude incidents and took possession of Tabou’s body. Zill is also blackmailing Nay into obeying her orders for some reason. This ends when Nay sings this song to hack into the Master Registrar — the Astronomical Faction’s top-secret information satellite — to crack the password for accessing Zill’s laboratory, allowing the group to save Sarly by using a virus developed by Zill to transform her into an artificial Genom and breaking REON’s hold over Tabou. Zill soon learns about these events and begins pursuing the group, so only Ion and Sarly manage to escape the Colon and her clutches. As we can see, the song is used to hack into a top-class government satellite, and while it was programmed by Sarly and Shirotaka, both of whom are the leaders and best hackers in Quantize, it was originally supposed to be sung by Ion due to her power to manipulate the current state of affairs in the world called the “Overlooking Viewpoint”, which allowed her to use “Ahih rei-yah” in the first chapter. However, due to lack of time, Ion was unable to use this song and instead Nay ended up singing it because she had obtained important information about the Astronomical Faction facilities from a researcher friend of hers called Fractel, who sacrificed his life to save her long ago. Due to this, it’s easy to see why this song is so emotional: Nay is remembering Fractel to boost her feelings for the hacking, as well as comparing herself with Ion in personality and feeling. She also shows her resolve not to run away anymore.
Now we come to the third song; while it’s my favorite on the album, I also have to say it’s the most overbearing conceptually of any song so far in Ar tonelico and Surge Concerto. Titled “QuelI->EX[cez]->{kranz};”, it is sung by Noriko Mitose and composed and arranged by Morrigan, who has gained somewhat of a celebrity status among the doujin music community due to his superb composition and arrangement work for the WAVE and FAIRIAL circles. I had already liked this combination because of their splendid work on the FAIRIAL concept album “Lucce e Iombra”, so I was surprised to hear they would contribute a song to Ciel nosurge; after listening, I’m very pleased. The song opens with Mitose singing in an operatic voice over a slow melody formed by synthesized computer noises and a cello line, both punctuated by strong percussion. In the body of the song, a furious set of Bulgarian-styled choruses surges through, backed by a synthesized orchestra twice; then the choruses recede as the main vocals take over again. The song becomes a duel between the main vocals and backing choruses, as if both sections try to overpower each other, with static-ridden voices appearing occasionally, until modded robot-like vocals give a brief break before the duel continues, all backed by the orchestra. Eventually the once-conflicting parts harmonize with each other, though the song retains a frantic pace and the orchestra is replaced by an electric guitar. After this, another series of robotic voices appears, and Mitose sings operatically over a sorrowful cello line, bringing the song to a close. As noted by the description, the song has a very conflicting nature and the “fighting choruses” cause it to be disharmonic at some points, so liking it can be an acquired taste. I personally liked it a lot and was blown away when the first set of Bulgarian voices started. The song never lets up on the power until its end, though there are good reasons in its story setting for being like this.
In-story, this song was sung by Zill, the same suspicious researcher I described in the story explanation for Code Ethes Wei, in order to accomplish a next-to-impossible feat: send a being to another dimension. This song was originally created and programmed by a very gifted researcher called Clackett Palmium, who was a member of the now-abandoned Genomirai Research Institute. That place also housed the main server of the Cielnotron Network, which is a water tank containing the body of a young girl called Nero. Nero’s soul was brought from another dimension and she was kept in forced sleep so her mind could be used as the REON-OS. Since she possessed the Overlooking Viewpoint power like Ion, she could easily accomplish all the multitasking processes the Cielnotron Server needed. This was rendered moot when Nepseal awakened her, and she made a pact with Zill: Zill once had a lover called Undu, who was also a researcher at Genomirai and an old colleague of Clackett. Undu lost his body, and his soul became a parasitic Genom residing inside Nero’s body following a disaster called the Genomirai Pandemic. The deal was that Zill would help Nero go back to her dimension and Nero would give up her body to Undu. Zill also offered to send Ion back to her own world, as Ion was also a soul summoned from another world. However, Nero used her power to alter the status quo for two reasons: to ensure Zill sent her first (fearing Zill would go back on her word after sending Ion back), and to procure Clackett’s help in the interdimensional sending—Clackett had initially refused to help because of the terrible consequences of tampering with the seven dimensions, or the Seven Axis, that form the fabric of reality. In the end, Renall, the leader of PLASMA and an old friend of Ion, convinced Ion that sending Nero back would cause the collapse of the world because the Cielnotron Server could not function without her presence, and Ion tried to stop the sending. This was fruitless: Nero was sent back to her own dimension. Additionally, when Ion and Renall boarded an airship to escape the collapsing Genomirai facility, their airship was shot down and both were killed. With this, it’s easy to see why this song is such a monster: it consumes quantities of energy capable of creating a miniature black hole to send a soul across dimensions, and it is the only known Song Magic so far that makes use of all the wave types known in Ra Ciela. The song sounds so desperate and intense because of how much Zill wants Undu back and her firm belief that this would be best for the world. She never expected this would bring terrible consequences to the world, as we’ll see in the next and final song.
The final song in the album is titled “zu-fao jen-din;”, and it marks the closing of the Downfall Arc. This song is once again sung and composed by Haruka Shimotsuki, though it is quite different from both Neptlude and Code Ethes Wei: while Neptlude sounded like European folk music and Code Ethes Wei had Japanese elements, zu-fao jen-din; has a sound more typical of Hindi music. Following an opening consisting of overlapping Bulgarian choruses, we hear several strange voices in the background. Then Shimotsuki sings the beginning of the song’s main part with a tone she has rarely (if ever) employed. The main voice is accompanied by the strange voices and the instrumentation, to which some Hindi-styled choruses are added a bit later. The song crescendos as the main vocals increase in energy and the rhythm picks up, then returns to the instrumental opening. The song repeats this structure with some differences before moving into an abruptly cut bridge. The final part is played quickly in reverse while a rewinding sound is heard as the song fades out. This is quite a strange song in many aspects; though similarly styled songs were heard in Ar tonelico in the form of EXEC_SOL=FAGE/. and EXEC_ViiBaCii_MjiiRa/., they didn’t have such uncommon instrumentation and finale.
The reason is its story purpose: two years passed after the incidents at the Genomirai Research Institute, during which the Cielnotrons became useless and the Astronomical Faction lost all power. Zill took control of the Earthbound Faction and established a religion called the Genomirai Church, as Ion and Kanon were believed dead. Nero’s sending should have reestablished order, but it worsened everything: Nero’s interference with the Qualia, or status quo, broke the balance of the universe, and it became worse after they opened the dimensional rift to send her back. Dimensional rifts began appearing throughout Ra Ciela, and the world was now on an unavoidable road to destruction. Nay and Ion’s friends gathered; after some events, they learned that Ion was not completely dead because Zill was keeping her soul stored in a vacuum tube. They retrieved it, and after further events it was discovered that Nay’s original body was actually Ion’s—Ion’s soul had been put into the body of an artificial Genom called a Sharl by Fractel to keep her from dying. Though the revelation sparked a huge fight, they ultimately understood each other because they had both endured hellish lives. Thus, with Ion’s soul and her Overlooking Viewpoint in their hands, the group came up with a new idea: hijack the Song Magic Zill was preparing to convert all of Ra Ciela’s population into mindless Genoms, and use it to return to the time before Nero tampered with the world’s Qualia. This required the sacrifice of everyone; they became living shields to protect Sarly, Nay, and Undu from Zill’s fanatic followers, but they still managed to sing the song successfully, returning to two years earlier and nullifying the disaster Nero had wrought on their world.
Summary
While it’s sad that Shikata didn’t contribute to any of the songs of this arc of Ciel nosurge, and thus to this album, it still manages to be pretty good in all aspects. Some songs are an acquired taste and can be hard to appreciate on a first listen, so give them a long, careful listen before deciding. Unfortunately, I have to deduct a point because the release has only four songs. This isn’t great value for money, especially given that the first volume already had the comparatively low number of five. The extra DVD is nice since it shows the scenes where each song was played in-game, though the songs are, of course, the short in-game versions. While the trailer collection is nice, they are all readily available through Gust’s official surgeconcert account. The SD Ciel nosurge theater track is also a nice addition since the Ciel nosurge alternate-universe Drama CDs aren’t exactly easy to find, though it feels weird to have them in a product that is as serious as this one in terms of content. In the end, the album will be an enjoyable listen for everyone, though those that understand the events and context surrounding each song will appreciate it much more. I’d recommend being invested in the series first, given that the price is somewhat expensive for this two-disc set that includes only four new songs. I’m eagerly anticipating the third volume, which will most likely be the last.
