It’s 2020 now, and all of this is firmly in the past, but I think it’s worth mentioning the wild ride that WILL-O’ went on over the course of the previous year. A lot has changed in the now three-plus years since Alloy was originally formed, and though WILL-O’ as WILL-O’ is fairly well-established at this point, I think it’s fair to say that change is the most consistent thing about the group. Well, change and doing great rock-related idol work, that is, and I mean that literally because you’ll remember that I held up “POP’N” as my personal favorite song of 2019.

And as that was going on, they were also releasing a new EP to close the year! I kind of forgot about it (it was sitting in my wait-until-an-MV-drops pile), then the MV finally did come a little on the late side, so here I go rhetorically returning the favor! But also they did some interesting stuff in the meantime, so waiting turned out to be smart. Anyway, the MV:

Fun! Not quite what I’m usually WILL-O’ing for, but variety is the spice of life, and one thing that “HANABI” has in absolute spades is variety. You can sign me up to be repeatedly kicked in the shins by that little riff in the verses, though — that’s aces. And what a way to start talking about video for the year, too. It’s so clean and cool, a simple concept rendered well and made into something that’s easy to revisit.

This would ordinarily end with me telling you to go get the dang record (do it anyway), except that WILL-O’ released a series of little member-personal commercial clips to promote the thing:

And while they were at it, some live video:

It’s also on the EP-is-what-it-is-shut-up, so it fits

It’s basically a miracle to get any WILL-O’ video stuff within any one quarter in the business cycle, so this much stuff all at once feels like early/late/whatever Christmas.