i review things

It’s a Nonamera world, we’re just living in it.

/ Papermaiden

“That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood

I got news for you, SHE IS”

Have you seen these lyrics from Bikini Kill’s Rebel girl? Clearly, Kathleen Hanna was prescient and wrote this song before the girl that would become Nonamera was even a concept in either of her parents’ mind. I’m kidding, of course, please don’t send me hate mail. This apparte and Bikini Kill have little to do with the musicality of Nonamera’s first solo release, and yet they are absolutely applicable to the blonde pixie.

The background is a deep lavender gradient becoming a teal blue, with magenta pink in the middle. It's the album cover. The visual is Nonamera's head, with an abstract photomontage coming out of the top of her head, as well as a separation just under her nose, with water coming out of it. The title "My Name is..." is written in caps and the font style is ballons-like, with a chrome/metallic impression.

Since said mini-album was just released, why don’t you hop in to read what we think of it?

Continue reading →

I Review Things: Minna no Kodomo-chan | “A World Without Walls”

/ Homicidol Maniac

All right, let’s not do that time-wasting thing when it comes to reviews anymore; when new stuff, especially new stuff from particular featured idols and honorary community favorites of Homicidols.com. Minna no Kodomo-chan gave us Kabe no Nai Sekai (A World Without Walls) to listen to, to embrace, to punish ourselves for sins more imagined than real by driving kawaiicore grotesqueries directly into our dreams. If all we ever had to go on was the other day’s MV, one might think that this is a one-way trip to video game hell, but we also know that Everybody’s Children can get down in lots of different, weird, wonderfully loud ways. What would their first album deliver on?

On to the review! Continue reading →

I Review Things: NECRONOMIDOL | “STRANGE AEONS”

/ Homicidol Maniac

Man, it’s been a while since I last did a review. In fact, the last one was … uh … well. This is getting a little awkward. Three of the last four now? Seriously?

All right. So before I do NECRONOMIDOL again, let me say that I’m also making a new year’s resolution to get more idol records and do more reviews, including some older stuff. Including something that I’m going to publish in like the next couple of days to break up this Necroma run. And then something else.

Great. On to the review!

Continue reading →

In Which I Use the New BiSH MV as a Vehicle

/ Homicidol Maniac

Well what the heck, you guys? Even though it was basically a given that BiSH would release another MV to promote the release of THE GUERiLLA BiSH, I don’t think anybody expected that it would appear out of nowhere on a Friday morning in Japan. Just like last time, they stayed true to the theme of the record!


My Captain

So that’s a pretty solid MV; I’ve never more wanted to be a guy tied to a chair, up to and including the apparent immolation-by-Ayuni. It was a wise choice, too, for the follow-up to “My landscape”, to convince that handful of people in the world who don’t already know that the album actually has a ton of upbeat intensity that BiSH is and always will be BiSH. For what it’s worth, I thought that “SMACK baby SMACK” was the best song on the album … and in wanting to say that and this one other thing* about it, I decided to include a miniaturized version of the review that I’ll now never publish. Continue reading →

I Review Things: Yanakoto Sotto Mute | ‘BUBBLE’

/ Homicidol Maniac / 9 Comments

I look back on when I first heard Yanakoto Sotto Mute. It was months before Bellring Girls Heart was announcing its kind-of end, and a sister unit coming into being felt like a nice move; give Bellheart a sidecar, and oh look they do grunge and stuff, that’s appropriate and … damn, that one girl there can sing like the dickens, huh? And these songs are pretty powerful!

Two EPs and about a year later, there’s a distinct feeling of change around the whole thing. BRGH took a break and got a new name and a bunch of new members, and it may be that the student has become the master. Or is the Yanamyu thing really just a bunch of hype? On to the review!
Continue reading →

I Review Things: NECRONOMIDOL | “DEATHLESS”

/ Homicidol Maniac / 12 Comments

Bringing back the disclaimers! It’s not a secret that I’m a huge mark for NECRONOMIDOL, and that their producer, Ricky Wilson, has been a friend to Homicidols.com in what I hope is a mutually fulfilling relationship; that being said, while I never had much reason to think that DEATHLESS would be anything less than great, I made a strong effort to put the relationship behind me for this sucker; I may love idol and I may love dark idol and I may love NECRONOMIDOL, but we don’t build community trust without honesty, and we don’t make other fans by being sycophants.

So. On to the review!
Continue reading →

I Review Things Weirdly: BiS | “Re:STUPiD”

/ Homicidol Maniac / 8 Comments
Cover art from the album Re:STUPiD by Japanese idolcore legends BiS

This review’s going to be more than a little different from how we usually do things, because a thought occurred to me when folks started to talk about the songs being released from Re:STUPiD as if they might be unrecorded work from Lui Frontic Akabane JAPAN (I can see arguments pro and con and have at different times supported either) — we’re thinking about BiS and their music now in the completely wrong way. See down at the end for the punchline and why I legitimately think that’s good and bad, but for now … on to the review! Continue reading →

I Review Things: Yukueshirezutsurezure | “Post-Catastrophe”

/ Homicidol Maniac / 3 Comments

Other than Babymetal’s Metal Resistance, I don’t know if I had more eagerly awaited an album in 2016. In absolute terms, “meteoric” isn’t a great way to describe Yukueshirezutsurezure’s rise, but in terms of awareness (at least among our kind) and rapidly defining a sound and attitude, they ran a marathon in a short while, only just failing keeping up with their equally compelling big sisters in Zenbu Kimi no Sei Da in total releases.

So yes, I anticipated that this was going to be a definitive album. I had such high expectations of it that, like a former jock parent who just can’t let go, I’m probably being a little bit unfair to the work, which should always be taken as it is rather than as I or anybody else want it to be. Nonetheless, I gotta be honest: I’ve struggled with this one. Continue reading →

I Review Things: Yanakoto Sotto Mute | “Sealing EP”

/ Homicidol Maniac

It’s not a secret that I’m super-duper excited about the launch of Yanakoto Sotto Mute. Grunge idols from the people who brought us Bellring Girls Heart! That’s pretty much guaranteed to be right up Maniac’s alley. And their first EP, 8CM EP, proved that this was a project way the hell on the right track; hard alt-rock with well-matched vocals and members who put on as elegant and artistic a stage show as you’ll see in idol.

Their big sisters are going on hiatus, and Yanamyu are being featured in the farewell tour. With the opportunity to share a big stage in front of a big audience, can they take a big step up after just a few months of existence and become a player in the alt-idolverse? Can their second EP (available for free until the 26th!) follow up on the promise shown in the first and equip the group for what’s to come?

Guess you’ll have to read the whole thing. Continue reading →

I Review Things: PassCode | ‘MISS UNLIMITED’

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments
Covert art of Japanese idolcore digital EDM clubcore idol group PassCode's MISS UNLIMITED single

I never thought I’d review a single; I just didn’t see the point. And yeah, “MISS UNLIMITED” is listed on iTunes as an EP, but it’s three songs and an air vocals version of the title track, and that’s a single in my book.

So why would I bother reviewing this one? A lot of reasons, actually: Because there’s an ongoing discussion around whether idols other than Babymetal can achieve crossover success in the West; because PassCode is among the most cited and seen when newcomers go looking for “what else is like this”; because I felt like it; and so on.

This is PassCode’s major label debut. It’s available internationally via iTunes (and probably other mechanisms, too, eventually). It’s already available in Europe and soon will be in North America. This might not be going all-in, but it’s a move aiming at international audiences.

The question then becomes whether it’s actually any good.  Continue reading →