Author: DAEMON

Your Homicidols Weekender #144

/ DAEMON

While the members of Team Homicidols would love to be irresponsibly uninformed music bloggers full time, we do have work and school and other things that resemble aspects of real life that unfairly consume the majority of our waking hours.   This being the case, we do let a few significant things slip through the cracks of Homicidols coverage, especially during times like this week when Maniac isn’t around to keep us on task. Hence the weekender!!

Here are the other things we would have written about this week if we didn’t have to work for food:

Team Homicidols is collectively going to hell for not giving this Oyasumi Hologram MV a standalone feature.

Here’s a sentence I never thought I would write:  Aina the End collaborated with SUGIZO for a Gundam theme song.

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Art Mirrors Life in Minna no Kodomochan’s Latest Single, “rikaku”

/ DAEMON

Minna no Kodomochan’s new single, “rikaku” (meaning “separate”) is significant in a number of ways. Stylistically, it is the most slow and measured of all of their songs, practically a lament. It is also their first solo, with Cinnamon providing both the main and backing vocal tracks. The song’s lyrics, which speak of being alone and confused, are also written by Cinnamon who is currently conducting their nationwide tour on her own while her partner (and Kodomochan’s principal lyricist) Honoka recuperates from injury.

https://twitter.com/kodomocafeid/status/1160023226501586944?s=20

Cinnamon has admitted that the song reflects the uneasiness she feels performing without Honoka.  For her part, Honoka has said that “rikaku” has become her favorite Minna no Kodomochan song. Honoka has previously been responsible for all of Kodomochan’s lyrics except for “Song of 15” on Walls, Cinnamon’s only other songwriting credit.

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Broken By the Scream Drop New MV and Album Release Date in Lead Up to U.S. Debut

/ DAEMON

Broken By the Scream will set foot on American soil for the first time in just under three weeks unleashing their kawaii-meets-deathcore stylings on a live crowd at Saboten Con in Phoenix, Arizona.  Because the one thing hype needs is more hype, BBTS also dropped a couple of  bombshells over the weekend:

  • The release date for their second full album, Noisy Night Fever;
  • And the MV for “Aihakimino”, the theme song for the upcoming PS4 game “Onechanbara Origin”.

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Miss iD2020 Semifinals: Familiar Faces and New Favorites

/ DAEMON

Miss iD, the annual “not a beauty pageant or freak show”, recently announced their semifinal field of 158 girls-at-heart (age ranges from teens to 30s). Familiar faces currently competing for the Miss iD2020 Grand Prix title include chika idols:

  • YONEKO (current soloist, former Bellring Girls Heart and MIGMA SHELTER)
  • Komachi Fujinomiya (current GuGu-LuLu, former MIGMA SHELTER)
  • Yulian (XTEEN and Heisei Haka-Arashi)

YONEKO, who has made several overtures to Western fans in the past few months, has personally appealed for our assistance:

To vote for a semifinalist you will need to download the Cheerz Fan Community app. The app is fairly intuitive to use and the search function works with Romaji so you can find who you are looking for pretty easily. Continue reading →

We Review Things: BiSH | ‘CARROTS and STiCKS’

/ DAEMON / 3 Comments

BiSH - CARROTS and STiCKS

Sitting down to a first listen of the fifth BiSH album, CARROTS and STiCKS, the big question is: Which BiSH will predominate? The brazen punks who got kicked out of Tokyo Idol Festival? The potential game changers who released a two-minute thrash punk single as their major label debut? Or the commercial idols who promote cell phones and sing anime theme songs?

We know the punk is still in BiSH as demonstrated every time they let Ling Ling center and she does the emotional equivalent of kicking your teeth down your throat. At the same time, it’s hard to give punk cred to a group that’s signing exclusive deals with Apple to restrict the digital distribution of their own music. I certainly won’t begrudge a person for making a living off their art, especially in the crap ass world of Japanese entertainment where the vast majority of power and profits are concentrated in the hands a few management moguls who are far less benevolent than BiSH’s boss-who-we-love-to-hate, Junnoske Watanabe. And it’s not like those of us who have climbed aboard the BiSH train can cry about genre, aesthetic or ideological purity anyway. Watanabe has never hidden the fact that he is punk in the same way that Malcolm McLaren was punk: thumbing the nose of a conservative society is good fun and all, but only if you can make a buck (pound or yen) doing it.

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Let’s Form a More Perfect Union with this Friday Fun

/ DAEMON

The Americans are taking over the Fun! In the spirit of the 4th of July, us Yanks with no social media savvy have wrested control of the Friday Fun away from our resident British monarch, Kerrie.

This revolution should in no way be seen as Kerrie’s punishment for last Friday’s Fun, #AltIdolBabyShower,  leaking a little too far into reality.

Other than SENANAN taking the idea literally, the rest of you were surprisingly well behaved.

As we recover from our raucous Independence Day celebrations of hot dogs, monster trucks, fireworks and Pabst Blue Ribbon (ed. actually I just binged Stranger Things and had a Chinese chicken salad), we ask you to imagine, what would our land of the free and home of the brave look like if had been founded by idols, for idols?

  • What if the Constitutional Congress had been run like a BiS audition?
  • What if Zero-chan had crossed the icy Delaware wielding a baseball bat with nails in it?
  • What if Hanako-san had gotten to add a few amendments to the Bill of Rights?
  • What if Melon Batake a Go-Go had their very own State?

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SENANAN Makes Some Life Changing Announcements

/ DAEMON

Yesterday SENANAN, our favorite unstoppable ball of Monster Ultra Blue-fueled energy, took a break from her 300 active projects to make a few surprise announcements. First, she’s gotten married.

The lucky groom is OFFPACO, drummer for the rapcore group HOTVOX. Continue reading →

Tsurezure Makes Us All Feel Something Different with “ssixth”

/ DAEMON

Yukueshirezutsurezure will be dropping their uncharacteristically upbeat single, “ssixth”, this coming Wednesday, July 3rd. To prepare us for this imminent release, these barefoot angels of yami kawaii blessed us with a chilling MV that inspired dueling interpretations around the Homicidols press room. 

In it, Mei Yui Mei and the adorable Kotetsu portray gleeful bullies documenting their torment of a passive Takara. Left battered and restrained, Takara is rescued(?) by  opportunistic predator or compassionate fellow victim Komachi.  This is left a bit ambiguous in the blood spattered end as is their final fate. Continue reading →

BABYMETAL AWAKENS!! Announces 3rd Album Release Date, European Tour and More

/ DAEMON

On night one of BABYMETAL AWAKENS – The Sun Also Rises at Yokohama arena, KOBAMETAL woke up and realized he had forgotten to tell anyone when the group’s new album was being released. Shortly following Friday night’s show, he finally announced:

METAL GALAXY, BABYMETAL’s third album, will be released on October 11th 2019. This date coincides with their first-ever U.S arena show at the Forum in Los Angeles.

The 16-track album will come in at least seven flavors:

  • Limited SUN version – (2CD / Analog size jacket) – ¥ 4,500
  • Limited MOON edition – (2CD / Analog size jacket) – ¥ 4,500
  • Limited edition – (2CD + DVD) – ¥ 4,200 
  • Normal edition – (2CD) – ¥ 3,500
  • Analog version – (2Vinyl) – ¥ 5,000
  • THE ONE Limited Edition- (2CD + DVD) – ¥ 9,000 + THE ONE fan club membership
  • A transparent vinyl version has also popped up on the English language store.

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Tsurezure Announces Sixth Single, “ssixth”

/ DAEMON

Not Secured, Loose Ends have announced that “ssixth”, the group’s sixth single,  will be released on July 3rd and, for some reason, the world suddenly feels like a better place.

I was going to say something else, perhaps about the album art, but thoughts are strangely difficult to put together… Continue reading →