In Which I Write a Well-deserved Love Letter to Party Rockets GT on the Occasion of Their New Single

/ Homicidol Maniac

There is a dwindling handful of groups that made up what I considered to be a core of high-quality idol back when Homicidols.com was transitioning from a twinkle in my eye to squalling newborn, and even among their number are a very small few who are still regularly releasing material and seem to be on the move. That leaves the groups like Party Rockets GT in a weird space, beloved of the boss but rarely mentioned, as they perpetually clip through the cracks.

Nonetheless, they’re worth checking up on fairly regularly, and a good while of doing that teaches one the rhythms of management’s business logic, and so it was that I started to hover over PRGT (and others) more in the past week, wishing/thinking/hoping that they’d be getting out some kind of release before the year was out. Not everybody delivered, but Haruka and her merry band of upbeat loudols certainly did:

The single is out on Wednesday!

To be clear: I love this group. There’s a reason why they dot the Ultimate Homicidols Playlist in a way that very few groups do — at their best, they just don’t miss. This one doesn’t quite deliver on its pretenses, but it’s exactly the Party Rockets that I yearn for. Hell, it’s the Party Rockets that I expect when they trot out the black outfits — give me that hard rock base and aggressive synth work and vocal melody that lives somewhere between idol tropes and an escape into the real world; let’s skip some of those unfortunate turns from the era when they tried instead to be a pop rock outfit heavy on the momcore and light on the guitar shredding. In that sense, delivery is successful; in another sense, which is that this must be the most visually ambitious MV they’ve ever released, I think we all owe them to notice.

For fun, here’s the outtakes video:

And just for giggles because this is my blog post, here’s another good example of Peak Party Rockets from a recent live:


The C-side of the single, no less

This group has been alive in one form or another since 2012, and, correct if I’m wrong, Haruka’s been there the entire time. What a trooper. You could forgive them for closing up — hell, I thought Haruka herself was destined to be gone and on a solo career at least a year ago — and yet not only do they keep on churning, they keep on finding new ways to deliver on that brand promise(TM). What’s next?

Auditions. PRGT ain’t going away. Go buy the single and then stick around.