What do you get when you take a prolific composer and producer and have her rework some of her most familiar music, add some original material and release the album Stateside? You get Yuki Kajiura’s “Fiction.”

Kajiura has a fairly distinctive style even apart from the fact that a lot of her songs’ lyrics are written in languages other than Japanese. And no, not all of the songs on the album are English either, as a couple of the tracks from the anime series Noir are represented here, namely “Salva Nos” and “Canta per Me,” albeit in renditions far more grandiose than the originals. The versions of “Key of the Twilight” and “Fake Wings” (from .hack) are fairly straightforward but no less enjoyable for that fact.

It’s the lesser-known tracks that really make the album, though. “Cynical World” is pretty, peppy and dark all at once. “Fiction” and “Vanity” are a hauntingly beautiful pair of songs. “Zodiacal Sign” is a collection of what could be considered “action sequence” background music from another anime title, and “Open Your Heart” is sweetly uplifting, almost too sweetly perhaps, but by that point on the album one tends not to mind too much.

Don’t let the fact that half of this album started life as music for anime series turn you away. Try the promo, which features “Key of the Twilight,” “Open Your Heart,” “Cynical World” and “Fiction.” Unless what you hear really turns you off, I wholeheartedly recommend this album to you.

YK – Fiction promo