Well of all the things that I definitely didn’t expect to run into yesterday, but did anyway, I think you can chalk up “PassCode covering a big-ass deal Western band and releasing a very Western-friendly MV to go along with it” as not only the winner, but also the closest I came to actually snorting coffee all over my keyboard since Covid-san chased me back to Maniac Mansion for work. Good job, PassCode! And also: Good job, PassCode! Your cover of “MANTRA” is right the hell on!

Original, for reference

So that’s an interesting take that’s just different enough to give it credence as a cover without deviating — like, at all — from the core sound of the original. Hell, if anything, PassCode added energy to the song. It’s not like it would have been a huge leap to imagine this, of all BMTH songs, getting an idol cover.

And of course this requires that I do the usual rambling ah-gee-is-this-part-of-PassCode’s-ever-abortive-strategy-to-catch-on-internationally thing, which I’ll actually reduce to a tl;dr for the sake of readability: Probably! I can’t judge BMTH’s popularity in Japan, but even their post-metalcore-whatever orientation these days is good for millions of fans in the West, so you do the math. Of course it remains to be seen if Ollie/BMTH will do PassCode a solid and elevate this track or if this is another reciprocity-is-fine-when-yen-are-exchanged things like with Fronzilla.