Overview

Maintaining their close association with Key, Japanese rock band MintJam covered the opening and ending themes for Rewrite with a single at the end of 2011. Given these songs were originally sung by Runa Mizutani, how does a male vocalist cope with handling them?

Body

The single opens with "Philosophyz," the first opening theme, composed by Shinji Orito and arranged by a2c from MintJam. It's an upbeat rock theme with some nice synth tones, providing some nice mellow sections and some more energetic sections. The vocalist, Runa Mizutani, does a great job as well, providing a voice that doesn't get overbearing in contrast to some of Key's other opening themes of late.

The ending theme, "Yami no Kanata e," composed and arranged by Yuuichirou Tsukagoshi and featuring Runa Mizutani on vocals, is a beautiful theme featuring a nice soft jazz sound with some beautiful piano work, some acoustic guitar work and orchestral accompaniment that really works well to capture the tone of the melody. There are also some sax sections that work really nicely and give the tone of the piece a bit more of a seductive sound.

The single is rounded off by shortened 'game size' versions of the theme songs and their 'karaoke' versions lacking vocals. Everything offered here is also featured in the full versions, but in surplus.

Summary

MintJam demonstrates on Key Tribute Album -Vivid Colors- that they were more than capable of covering Key's theme songs. They once again impress with their cvoers of "Philosophyz" and "Yami no Kanata e". I'd recommend this cover single above the original single for those who prefer male singers and like their theme songs rockin'.