Idol Rock

For posts that relate to idol groups with a distinctly rock sound.

This Is a New Single from Haruno Yumu

/ Homicidol Maniac

When you’ve been at this idol game for a while, not only do you find yourself with a startling amount of otherwise useless knowledge, the amount of recall you’ve built up as a bank gets to be almost harrowing to consider. I had the privilege of talking about ye olde website and its advent a couple of weeks back with a friend who I hadn’t seen in years, for instance, and after getting through the tl;dr Homicidols Elevator Pitch, he sort of good-naturedly challenged me on just how much there would really be to talk about. I made him look through our archives on his phone while I narrated the process of discovering literally hundreds of loud-aligned idol groups over time, and following his surprise waxed nostalgic on certain acts from way back in the day, names like petit pas! and THE SPUNKY and Tsubasa Fly, names you might not recognize if you’ve only been around in the past couple of years. And then I enjoyed telling him about the long-timers that are still out there! Your You’ll Melt More! and NECRONOMIDOL and … UNDER BEASTY. And that’s when I kind of lit up, for not only do I love them all, but UB holds a very special place in my heart for having navigated their way from a truly indie origin all the way to a major label. Anybody who’s ever turned to their idiot friends and said “we should start a band!” (as I had several times with the friend mentioned here) can relate to the excitement that wells up inside in those moments — and UB lived it.

So yeah, while I did just get to post about UNDER BEASTY recently and reflect a bit on that trajectory therein, here’s another chance because Yumu just dropped her second single: Continue reading →

Let’s Discover Some Idols: Fiore

/ Homicidol Maniac

So the past few weeks have been just incredibly busy with Day Job and various other affairs with Fiancee and the regular business here at Maniac Mansion, so I’ve been a terrible proprietor. Don’t think I haven’t been paying some attention, though; in fact, one could argue that I was actually trying to observe idol even more than usual because a person can really only spend so much mental energy monitoring chats in Zoom rooms before needing to waste time on other things. A Twitter feed, for instance. And it was in so doing that one reference led to another and finally to a name that was kind of familiar but I simply could not place. A new idol?

Not at all! In fact, a search of drafts showed that I had originally wanted to cover Fiore here (Twitter) ALL THE WAY BACK IN 2017 thanks to a referral from our old pal Pure Idol Heart. This is how you clear out a backlog! Continue reading →

In a Very Important Friday Tradition, We Have New STARMARIE

/ Homicidol Maniac

When was the last time we got to do a STARMARIE post? I know things have been weird out there, but Friday and STARMARIE used to go together like spaghetti and meat sauce (which is to say, deliciously). Yeah, more often than not it was just live clips, but what’s wrong with that? Truth be told, ol’ STARMARIE hasn’t done a whole lot of new material in recent times, and IIRC it’s been almost a year since their last release, and nowadays Homicidols Dot Com really relies on those new releases to have things to talk about.

BUT THIS IS A STARMARIE POST, and if there’s one thing that STARMARIE has always been good at providing, it’s cool idorock befitting their gimmick as like guardians of esoteric knowledge or what have you, but actually more precisely it’s cool idorock that works well as theme songs for other media. And here we are again! I was very pleased to find that STARMARIE had a whole new MV for a whole new song, like just generally, and deeply unsurprised to see that it’s a theme for a movie: Continue reading →

I Enjoy This Particular BiSH Song Template

/ Homicidol Maniac

So as I was saying before, I had pretty high hopes for this BiSH album (out now!), and they graced us this morning with another MV from it, which:

I am supposed to be working right now, so this is also very short, so let’s suffice it to say that while the opening worried me that we had another “Orchestra” clone, “BE READY” here is more reminiscent of stuff from the FAKE METAL JACKET era, which for my money was actually the superior point in BiSH anthems, though now it’s both grown up and does include some tropes familiar to anybody who likes WACK artists or even just SCRAMBLES products.

I get to listen to the album today and remain pretty stoked about it.

This Is Not the Shithatsu-machi Underground MV I Wanted, But It’s the Shihatsu-machi Underground MV I Got, And That’s Fine

/ Homicidol Maniac

So last week, while writing up my own little contribution to our ongoing all-time top 50 albums project, I was re-listening to Shihatsu-machi Underground’s self-titled for probably the 100th time and casually adding them to the list of groups that, going into 2020, really felt like they might be on the cusp of great things (before, you know). And I won’t walk that back because I’m a fan, though I will allow that a certain bias may tinge the perspective — the whole reason that Shihatsu-machi made it onto our countdown at all is because of the unique alignment of the people on Team and the spectrum of tastes among us; obviously we aren’t talking about a hugely influential group or release here (not yet), but rather one that holds up in our opinion as just being remarkably good. Continue reading →

UNDER BEASTY Got Themselves a TV Show Theme

/ Homicidol Maniac

Where my other old-time UNDER BEASTY fans at? This is so cool, right? Our girls landed themselves a TV show theme, and while it is pretty standard idorock, it’s good standard idorock, and with a cool MV to boot:

UB’s soon to celebrate their seventh anniversary (as UNDER BEASTY). I’m always so happy for them.

This is a very short post because I’m on a train

It’s Good to See PapiRosier After All This Time

/ Homicidol Maniac

Some idol groups, even those that are just grinding away on chika stage after chika stage, release tons of material and as a result are super accessible; others … not so much. I do have a gift for recall, fortunately, so it’s rare to really, truly forget about a unit once introduced, but as time goes on and life’s priorities change, I do have to admit to being surprised when certain projects pop up from the blind spots in my mind.

Like PapiRosier, who released this MV the other day for their new single! This is the first thing I wrote about them, in the summer of 2016; we have averaged 0.8 post per year from them since, as that seems to be the approximate release schedule. And given how things change over time and the whole “heavy idol” thing has run its course in certain ways, I fully expected this MV to be a simple, sparkling idol song, probably kind of anthemic because that’s what they do, but bereft of much in the way of rock sounds and definitely not something to blog a post about: Continue reading →

Here’s NELN’s Entry for Song of the Summer

/ Homicidol Maniac

I’ve been on the lookout for good summertime best-of candidates around the idolverse the past few weeks — our pal N.FENI sort of stole a lot of that thunder though — and frankly coming up kind of short. Am I crazy? I feel like it was normal in the past for even the alt/chika scene to get a few good candidates (even if they were piss-takes) into the mix, and this year just not so much. Pandemic? Olympics? Everybody forgot how calendars work?

Anyway, not a whole lot has happened this week, but our well-loved pals in NELN did drop an album the other day (stuff we know, though), and along with it a new single that … no, screw it, I already ruined the pun.

Continue reading →

New Finally Things to See and Hear

/ Homicidol Maniac

This is a very fast post because someone forgot that he needed to be somewhere very early this morning, though I don’t think anybody’s going to mind! You’re here for idols, not Maniacs!

So you remember Finally, yes? Recent-like debut and all that? Well here they are with their second song/MV and if you’re into piano-driven rock songs with nice hooks like I am, you’re going to dig it:

Continue reading →

Oyasumi Hologram Lives!

/ Homicidol Maniac

Last year’s devastating loss of Hachigatsu-chan felt like it would be curtains for Oyasumi Hologram. Yes, it was clear that the project would have some legs going forward (those videos of Kanamil and Ogawa made it clear), and arguably OYSM could have become a solo project of Kanamil’s and probably nobody would have batted an eye. And frankly, any continuation was going to be a good one, and so really could have come in any configuration. This, though? This goes far beyond anything I would have expected.

The “OYSM5” name they were using for the gig should have been the deadest of giveaways; also, hi Janice

Continue reading →