Immortal (Regular Version)

There's an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and vulnerability throughout Immortal, even though it's expressed with the simplicity heard in Cheer's past music. Nevertheless, the overall tone is more emotional than those past works, with more attention paid to the album's sound as a whole. It even starts with a short intro Rebirth (Track 1) to set up the tone. The acoustic guitar ballad is short and incomplete, but it leads nicely into Complex (Track 2), a melancholic ballad that starts off quiet, but expands into an ambitious mediation on loneliness and unrequited love with an expressive vocal performance by Cheer. Complex signals that this is no longer the old Cheer belting out simple love ballads with her guitar, but a mature musician with complex emotions that need to be expressed.

Cheer's main instrument of choice is still the guitar, and it shows in titular song Immortal (Track 3). Like the titular song for A Fabulous Adventure, Immortal is a power ballad dominated by the electric guitar and a rich composition by frequent collaborator Tiger Chung. However, with a similar style of composition as Complex, Immortal feels like a continuation and escalation of the tone set by Complex instead of an individual song. The same goes for The Edge (Track 4), which goes back to a piano-driven composition as it returns to the theme of desolation. With its own build-up, climax, and conclusion, the three tracks make up a strong section that gives the album a memorable start.

However, Immortal is not all about sadness and isolation. Cheer does eventually return to her old acoustic guitar-driven style in the second half with songs featuring simpler composition and somewhat more upbeat tone. But even though the mid-tempo track Stubborn Love Wins (Track 6) feature a more upbeat composition and arrangement, as well as a seemingly happy vocal performance by Cheer, its lyrics still strike a bitter tone from beginning to end. The album continues the balance between a light acoustic guitar-driven style with bittersweet observation on imperfect and unrequited love in the second half until the mid-tempo rock track Calm (Track 9), featuring minimal lyrics and episodic compositional structure that recalls the album's opening introduction. While its musical style is similar to older Cheer tracks in the same vein, the tone feels more fitting among the more emotional-driven atmosphere of Immortal.

The second half's simple, low-key, and bittersweet style culminates in Fireworks (Track 10), a cover of the rock ballad Proof, which Cheer originally penned for Faith Yang. With a new set of lyrics written by Cheer herself, Fireworks strikes a more gentle tone than the defiant tone of the original lyrics by Will Lin. While the composition of Cheer's version is richer and surprisingly more intense than Faith's version, the song is more straightforward in its intention, with Cheer's natural vocal unable to carry the intensity that Faith had in her version. This is a case where an original author taking back her own song may not always yield the originally intended effect.

Immortal wraps up with Take Away (Track 11), a hypnotic ballad that ends on a melancholic tone that brings the album back to where it began. The extended ending feels like an appropriate ending for the overall emotional journey that is Immortal. But unlike the happy ending of A Fabulous Adventure, Immortal ends on a gloomier note that places listeners back to the beginning. The strongest point of the album is not necessarily the composition of the individual songs or Cheer's comparatively emotional vocal performance, but rather in Cheer's ability to compose the album as a complete musical journey into her psyche. On the final image of the liner notes, Cheer dedicates the album to "every grieving, lonely soul". Immortal may not help in healing emotions (it actually enhances them instead), but it's nice to hear someone actually attempt to take these abstract feelings and express them in music. The best part is that the result of the process is something as strong as Immortal.

Recommended Tracks: All

by Kevin Ma