Sweet Holy Hell, PassCode

/ Homicidol Maniac

The only bad thing about this newer Day Job of mine is that I’m almost always in a subterranean rail system at the times of day for Peak Idol Announcements. And still, coming off of last week’s MV for PassCode’s all-out double A-side single, I knew that I’d still want to dash to a computer and check it out.

Apologies to the intern who sits outside of my office, because it only took the preview herein to convince me to play this sucker loud:

Region-blocked? Ever-helpful manager-san put it up on Facebook!

This is … this is everything that I ever wanted from a Mature PassCode song. Not content to traipse idly through the tropes that made them, but to expand on the potential and really gun for it. “Taking you out” was pretty good; “Tonight”, man, I don’t know. To struggle to place a song accurately within a full discography is one thing, but to wonder just how high it needs to be in a broader loudol conversation? That’s what they call a good problem to have.

Regardless of that, PassCode seems to be done with the lower-key approach. This is a full-throated hurling of a gauntlet to the ground and full-on daring challengers to step forward. The question is, who’s it gonna be? Maybe the whole thing could be obviated with a year-ending album? That’d pretty much put the icing on it. And if being back to rip-roarin’ form can be read as anything more than it is, in combination with the group’s first official international release, can appearances on filthy gaijin shores be far behind?