When I reviewed her single “Wake Me Up” a few weeks back, I believed that milet’s strength lies in her ability to craft powerful ballads that can jam-pack stadiums with an overabundance of vigour and conviction. On her sophomore album Visions, she further makes her case as a captivating songstress when her material allows it. However, it also hammers home the fact that milet excels at delivering engrossing singles but oversaturates her projects with too much of a good thing.

Since her debut in 2019, she’s been working tirelessly by putting out 7 EPs and 2 albums to date – each of them packed with a surefire hit single paired with a handful of other tracks meant to test the waters with her audience. Many of which were opening to TV shows or anime, which leads to a gradual familiarity of her music to a wide array of audiences. Not to mention nearly every track of hers mixes in English lyrics at any given opportunity, usually in the chorus for an extra bit of memorability (a prevalent trend in mainstream Asian music today).

Combine all of these elements and you have an artist that seems to be specifically made to top charts and appeal to a global audience, which makes since she was raised in Canada and flaunts a raspy voice usually heard in Western artists instead.

This ends up being one of milet’s biggest strengths as the constant dramatic ballads give her ample room to flex her falsetto and powerful vocals. So much so you’d have to wonder how she pulls off a live set if every song all sound equally as demanding. Singles like “Fly High”, “One Reason” and “Ordinary Days” are backed by soaring production right out of a shonen anime (which she’s also actually done multiple times). While tracks like “Who I Am”, “Shed A Light” and “Come Here (Session1)” are stripped down to allow milet to belt her heart out. Most of the album ends up being ballads that are very good on their own but steal each other’s thunder when put together.

Though the record ends up rather stale because of this, at least it’s enjoyable…which can’t be said for the 1-2 punch of “Outsider” and “Checkmate”. For what it’s worth, experimentation is always commendable and especially so for an artist so rooted in tried-and-true formulas. Still, the abrasive electronic production on both songs finds itself at constant odds with milet’s attempt at making more dance-ready tunes, which arguably produces a completely opposite effect.

Ultimately, Visions comes off like a compilation of top-charting hits than a cohesive record (as a lot of tracks appear on her past EPs too), which doesn’t make it a bad project – just one that might make for a forgettable listen save for the handful of tracks that listeners would take away with.