It’s been too long since there was much of anything to do with good ol’ MAPLEZ — sometimes the loudest idols out of Hiroshima not named Nakamoto — but the occasion of their eighth(!) single gives us that chance. And good, because I was frankly tired of doing festival roundups and just kind of tossing MAPLEZ in there, because they are cool and good and worthy of more than passing mentions.

To whit:

“Ego Survivor!” Solid. If only the title that reminds me of All Is Vanity PassCode were indicative of something more like the sound of that; I’ve always (mentally) packaged the two projects together, electronic+heavy+fun+maturity, with MAPLEZ of course having a more notable pre-loud history (and more history in general) and their own theater and an exciting-enough new sister unit.

Here’s their live from Tower to promote their new single:

Idol’s such a weird and amazing thing, you know? Kind of like with Yamaguchi Kassei Gakuen, MAPLEZ is out of the limelight not because they aren’t good, but because they’re not from the main axis of idol, and yet they do very well for themselves in their home market and it’s all good. I’m sitting here and trying to remember the last time there was a genuinely good, flourishing locality-based music scene in this country, you know?

The rub is that the grass isn’t always greener; the list of local/regional idols who went to Tokyo to try to achieve more financially and failed is as long as it is ignominious.