For those of you who don’t know, Cornelius is a pop/rock artist who is very successful in his native Japan and has received critical acclaim and popularity the world over.

Specifically, Cornelius plays Shibuya-kei. This is a variety of Japanese pop music that combines elements of jazz, fusion, traditional music, and other styles.  He was part of other projects before setting out on his own under the Cornelius moniker and this is his third solo album.

His previous releases have a much more rock/band orientated sound even with the amount of crazy drum machines, theremins and computer vocals he uses. On the whole, Sensuous has a much more subdued electronica and ambient feel to it.

One of the standout tracks on this album is Wataridori. It has a crazy offbeat, almost linear drum beat with layered guitar tracks complete with different delay times and pitch shifting.

The song itself doesn't really change a lot but it's beautiful; I'm not advocating drug use but you'd probably float away if you were on something and heard this. Another excellent song follows this (Gum) and is being released as the first single.

It’s a stark contrast to Wataridori and is about the first thing on the album that resembles a rock joint. It starts with a constant muted guitar strum that gradually turns into a powerchord chug.

The drumming has that weird offbeat computerised feel but sounds very much like acoustic drums. The vocals are as much part of the rhythm as the rhythm itself, with alternating words being repeated by different voices and coming from different directions.

As the Shibuya-kei label suggests, there are many different styles at work (or play) here and despite a couple of overly quirky moments where there's just noise for a minute or a song that's just a little too minimal (Fit Song), this is a very solid and entertaining listen.