TEARS is a complete and total departure from ANYTHING Noria has done. Perhaps that's why she was credited to the song as "EK" (whatever that stands for). It's completely unlike any other Noria material... But it's good. Not that her other material is bad by any means, but this is just awesome.

TEARS is a sad, depressing song, a song of unconfessed love and hopelessness. It's short (at least, the vocal part is), but to the point. TEARS accomplishes more in a couple brief lines than most songs do in 5 times that.

Noria's vocal here is perfect. Her soft, sweet voice echoes with sadness, and serves to enhance the song. I can't think of anyone who could pull off the vocal so perfectly.

So now you're wondering why I gave it only 4 stars, right? If I think this song is so amazing? Well, unfortunately the album version suffers what Silvia Drive did - The music goes on *forever* before you get to the heart of the song. It's techno with some variation for several minutes before Noria even kicks in.

Much like Silvia Drive, I've made an edit of this song, it starts right when Noria whispers, "Tears don't stop...". It retains the feel of the music and all of the vocals but cuts off all the needless repetition of the music at the beginning. The DDR version of TEARS is also pretty good.

I give my edited version of TEARS 5 stars, no contest. Unfortunately the ridiculously long intro on this version of the song drags it down to 4. Even if this is the only version you can hear of TEARS, though, it's totally worth it to hear Noria sing something serious and sad. Despite its one flaw it is a great song.