Arrow Heart

Arrow Heart Is Still Alive and You Need to Appreciate That

/ Homicidol Maniac

Who among you who regularly read ol’ Homicidols Dot Com in the early days, when I posted any and everything and marveled at the very ability of idols to exist on this mortal plane, are still around to reminisce with me? Ah, the glory days, when Alice Project fanboys sock-puppeted their way to … something, and we did stupid things purely for the sake of trying something new. And, pertinently, they were the days when I was blown away in so many ways by the persistent presence of a little idol project called Arrow Heart.

Listen to this! I’d do anything for a clean recording to really appreciate it — as Phillter (remember Phillter?!) once put it, they’re basically FRUITPOCHETTE sans some polish. And the neat thing about idols, you don’t need them to rock the hell out to appreciate them, as demonstrated: Continue reading →

Arrow Heart Lives!

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Let’s talk about a love of mine, gang. It’s a pretty lame week, after all, and you take the small victories when you can get them.

If you’ve been around a while, you may remember the time that I declared that I would do whatever was necessary to aid the success of one Arrow Heart, a two-member subgroup of a fairly insignificant idol project that’s part of a … well, what matters is that they made music like FRUITPOCHETTE Lite, and those two (originally three!) members just idoled ever so hard for literal handfuls of wota at various local events, but it all wound up on YouTube. I was moved! That’s dedication; I wanted them to, well, become something in the way that I used to imagine the choir director at this one church probably used to wish that she’d taken that one chance to New York for an audition, but was gamely leading retirees and whoever’s kid was in the high school chorus through all-too-familiar arrangements of holiday hymns while he own life devolved into middle age.

Brutal.

I followed, though, and took as many opportunities as possible to share my love. But then, one day, I noticed that Arrow Heart wasn’t sharing new stuff on YouTube anymore, and their official Twitter was mostly just sharing stuff from the main group. And I thought, well, another idol bites the dust, and I went back to obsessing over Yanakoto Sotto Mute business.

But! Continue reading →

Here’s Another Chance for Me to Tell You about Arrow Heart

/ Homicidol Maniac

Remember when I said that I’d do anything to promote Arrow Heart’s success and reveled in the pure makeshiftedness of their whole operation, the go-for-it attitude of the members and things like that? Well, I haven’t been the best #1 fan in the USA because it’s been a while since I’ve brought them up, but they just shared some new video from a recent live, and I’m passing it on to you so you, too, can send them encouraging messages.

I just love this whole setup so much. Small-town idols working as a subunit of an extension of a local band project, and rather than just be like “it’s okay, we’re in the boonies, who could possibly care about that,” they have a reasonably media-competent operation and put just about everything on YouTube in what could be a nice edifying thing for the girls (“people all over the world can see you perform!”) or is a legitimate hope to … have people all over the world see them perform.

Anyway, indie as hell, perfectly competent music, members who have nothing to be ashamed of. Arrow Heart. Rooting for them. Go say hello.

I Will Do Everything in My Power to Promote the Success of Arrow Heart

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Man, remember this from a few months ago? The beyond-young idols doing heavy+ who-knows-what with the suicidal imagery and approximately zero fucks to give, as demonstrated by their my-neighbor’s-kid-knows-HTML-and-built-me-this website?

Arrow Heart. So lo-fi it hurts. They tweeted out their demo, “Give You Love,” which has been living in obscurity on YouTube for almost six weeks:

It’s debuting in, like, many more weeks, and I share it here and now because why not, it’s got a great high school garage band quality to it and — who made this comparison before? — sounds like a very early version of Fruitpochette.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I MADE THE WILD DECLARATION IN THE TITLE! This is why: Continue reading →

Now This Is Underground: Get a Load of Arrow Heart

/ Homicidol Maniac / 2 Comments

I spied this via Idol 2.0 last week and wanted to come back to it after I’d had a chance to investigate a little bit, and HOO BOY am I glad that I investigated.

Meet Arrow Heart, a three-member unit doing some rock of various hardness, a taste of metal, rather homicidol:

At first glance, you’re like, “Great, another metaphorical log for the fire. When do we get to have the really crazy stuff like devil clowns and S&M punk rockers again?” And that’s fair. Arrow Heart is perfectly fine, and one gets the feeling that they’re basically brand new, so we probably haven’t even sniffed their ceiling yet.

But I ultimately chose this angle because this is their website.

My first thought: Does this herald the arrival of comet Hale-Bopp? They clearly aren’t afraid of suicidal imagery:

But this is life when you’re willing to actually try and have next to no resources. Trust me. I’ve been there. And this is so 1997 that I’m willing to believe that it’s deliberate, which itself has a certain retro coolness. (And this is what it sounds like to give somebody the benefit of the doubt!)

Here’s more of them performing:


Also, rocking kitsunes.

Anyway, in the spirit of encouraging and promoting idols, godspeed to you, Arrow Heart. Two-thirds of you are extremely young, and one gets the feeling that “fresh” doesn’t even begin to describe your experience level, but you’re going for it.