One of the very best things about being a fancy idol blogger is that hooking yourself into different networks to find new material is cool, but being hit up by other folks who want to share is even better. And when subsets of people collectively mark the hell out at once, you know that what you’re about to experience is going to be worth it.
For instance, let’s all take a moment to welcome Kolokol (Twitter) to the world:
From the same people who brought us PassCode (we-B Studios), who are also the same people who brought and then took away from us NEVE SLIDE DOWN, but let’s keep things positive for now:
The above, “Squall”, is from their debut album, nostalgia, (added detail here*), and the group itself will debut at the Nest event in a couple of weeks, accompanied by … well, a lot of the usual associations, in fact (Alloy, uijin, etc.).
This is a music website, after all, so rather than ask if anybody recognizes any of the members from various Osaka / Kansai projects (DO YOU?!)*, let’s talk sounds. There clearly isn’t the same frenetic fury as you might expect from PassCode, nor the edge that NSD would dial up. In a lot of ways, it’s splitting the difference between contemporary rock-inspired idol and regular ol’ idol, leaning on vocal patterns and melodies in the verses that would be familiar to any number of contemporary projects, but taking liberally from those distorted guitars and kicked-up percussion to drive the emotion in the choruses. Without being like my absolute favorite idol project necessarily, there’s definitely a lot to compare here, or to the likes of the previously referenced uijin.
Nobody other than Team Kolokol has heard the album yet, obviously, so whether the entire release is in a similar style or, like the earliest days of the re-re-tooled PassCode, if it lays a common gloss over a short stack of styles to experiment within a safely defined lane remains to be seen, but this is a really strong first step out the door. NEVE SLIDE DOWN wound up releasing a batch of material in short order, so I’m hoping that Kolokol does as well; this is the kind of debut that warrants immediate strong attention.
*I send my sincerest thanks to producer-san for titling just about everything not just in romaji, but English words
**And rather than ask if that’s a tattoo on the one member’s leg
