PassCode

For pages and posts that relate to PassCode.

PassCode’s Album Is Two Days Away, But No Fake, You Can Listen to the Very Full Digest Now and Apparently Download the Thing Digitally

/ Homicidol Maniac

You may have already heard the previous, uh, previews of the upcoming PassCode album, which … well look at who’s advancing to the Final Four in the Corenament! HOW APPROPRIATE. Anyway, new album, coming out Wednesday, and here’s a very full digest of the entire thing: Continue reading →

Approximating Levels of Hype Regarding the New PassCode Album

/ Homicidol Maniac

What year is it? 2019? Holy heck. It feels like half of forever since I’ve been talking about big steps forward for PassCode, going back probably all the way to the beginning of the site but realistically zeroing in on their first major-label releases, when the world seemed to be their oyster and they were very happy to tease Western appearances.

They keep doing it, too, but the last couple of years have actually been kind of rough on the group, Yuna’s illness being the most obvious difficulty but there no doubt being other complications that have kept them on a relative holding pattern. There’s been a hollow element to all of that promise of late, and one could be forgiven for thinking that maybe this time is when PassCode finally packs it in. What a shame that would be! They’re arguably as good as they’ve ever been, they should be trying to maximize that potential!

Well heck, now that we know more about the new album, this is it:

Hype level? Hype. Continue reading →

PassCode Bless Us Everyone

/ Homicidol Maniac

Well this should have been done yesterday, but curses be upon those who clog up our weekends with tasks instead of having fun.* In this case, super fun, as PassCode, undeniably one of the funnest things in idol but one that we’re altogether too deprived of over the past 18 months or so, is pretty much announcing that they’re back to full strength and ready to kick your stupid teeth in. Bless them.

For the uninitiated, it’s important to note that it was only a couple of years ago that Osaka’s flagship loudol unit was still very much a chika thing, playing larger clubs but overall a normal, completely accessible idol group that just so happened to be loud as all hell and fairly obvious to all with eyes and ears that they had a bright future ahead. They were one of the big breakout stars from the (epic in retrospects) 2015 Tokyo Idol Festival, which got them their major debut and kick-started what looked like an unstoppable growth phase — nobody else sounded like them, nobody else had a Yuna, and few could compete with the raw intensity of their lives. That they even hit a speed bump was just dumb, terrible circumstance. Anyway, I bring this up to point out that, at this sort-of new starting line, this is what their tour final looks like:

And what’s next? Continue reading →

PassCode Saw It Fit To Gift Us a New Song, Praise Be

/ Homicidol Maniac

I figure that Papermaiden’s going to take the daily post title award, so I’ll just riff on her concept and completely reject her blasphemy this time by flipping it around and saying YEAH THANKS SANTA THIS IS JUST WHAT I WANTED!

Or, I guess it’s more appropriate to say, PassCode, I’ve been missing you, why don’t you come in, there’s pie and cider and yes, we’re all annoyed with him too, I got him extra drunk on eggnog and now he’s sleeping it off, oh for me? for all of us! Why, it’s exactly what we need to kick this traditional holiday get-together of people in ugly sweaters into high gear! I’ll just put this right on for everybody to enjoy! Continue reading →

This Is Peak PassCode

/ Homicidol Maniac / 2 Comments

I have nothing to add from yesterday, except to say that it’s really good to have PassCode back at tippy-top form. This is an uppercut to the jaw.

If PassCode has ever done a better song, I’d like to hear it so that we can fight about it. If they ever do a better one, heavens help us all, for an impossible thing will have been accomplished and literal pigs will be literally flying.

Here’s Our First Look at the New PassCode Single

/ Homicidol Maniac

Man, few things can get me as revved back up and into an idol mood as something new from PassCode; I’ve been watching their Twitter like a hawk for the typical preview of the double A-side to drop (the art got me particularly hype) just so that I could bask in the thermonuclear glow of PassCode doing PassCode things. It’s just a shortened clip from the MV that we got this morning, but that’s a lot more PassCode than we had just yesterday, and that’s fine. Take it away, screaming vocoder digicore idols:

Some of you can probably the see the whole thing via that link in the tweet, but many of us can’t! I even went chasing after PassCode on Facebook to see if they’d added an upload for us there yet, but alas: Continue reading →

These Are the Details on the New PassCode Single

/ Homicidol Maniac

Remember a few weeks back and I was like “oh wow okay good” about the news of a fourth major single coming up any day now from digital idolcore masters PassCode? It wasn’t that it wasn’t good news, just mundane news, of the type that makes you want to find another thing to go more excited about, because this is (/checks notes) PassCode’s fourth single since joining Universal, for whom they’ve also released (/checks notes again), well, I guess it depends on how you count “new,” but a lot. The point is a lot. That’s cool. What they haven’t done before is a double A-side, until now:

Like, it’s not the most exciting update, either, and I wouldn’t blame you for feeling a little shorted and wanting to go do something else instead. Goodness knows that I do! However, the aforementioned double-A, plus cover art (representing the same, I assume) that’s one part cyber Rubix cube and one part ephemeral angel of death. For some reason, I find it completely appropriate. Now give us the full MV releases outside of Japan at the very beginning, please and thanks.

PassCode’s Making Them International Moves

/ Homicidol Maniac

A good while back, I speculated that PassCode would not just join the Idol Invasion, but might be a prominent player in it. After all, between VIRTUAL and the “MISS UNLIMITED” single (and the signing with Universal), they were riding as high as anybody through 2016, including on gaijin shores. The ever-necessary English-language videos followed. It wasn’t a leap to expect them to arrive, maybe even in 2017, and possibly even put together a mini-tour.

The next year wasn’t so kind. “bite the bullet” didn’t seem to excite people the way that previous materials had, and ZENITH, despite being pretty good, seemed to be missing something. The shine had worn off, maybe, or PassCode’s fairly narrow musical range was catching up to them. Regardless, just when momentum seemed to be at its lowest ebb since 2014’s epic re-launch, it was announced that Yuna was going on hiatus for real-deal health issues.

Was PassCode going to recover? I questioned it, I’ll admit. Human beings are natural front-runners — maybe because we understand mortality in an abstract way, or maybe because we just suck, we follow the brightest and shiniest of things even if we don’t like them simply because they’re bright and shining, and that bright shininess can rub off on us one way or another. To lose shine, though, is to basically forfeit it, because we definitely do suck and will simply, as a species, move on to the next shiny bright thing.

You can be surprised that 2018 has been a pretty nice rebound for ol’ PassCode, then, especially since it seems like they’re finally getting to test those international waters. Continue reading →

Here’s the Full Digest Version of PassCode’s ‘Ray’

/ Homicidol Maniac

It’s a slower day in idol, folks, and I neglected to work the Soundcloud clips into the Weekender, so let’s all gawk at PassCode’s splice of the tracks available on “Ray”:

I previously called the title track itself maybe my favorite piece of new music of theirs since the release of “MISS UNLIMITED”, and this frankly backs that up well. It’s even structured a lot like that (pretty legendary-like, honestly) release, with the catchy Radio PassCode lead, and the Heavy PassCode and Heavy Dance PassCode B-sides. “TRICKSTER”, just in short form, is menacingly shaking its fist at many of my past favorite Heavy PassCode tracks, and I can’t wait to hear it in full. Continue reading →

Hey, How’s That New PassCode Single?

/ Homicidol Maniac

So I was saying the other day that, despite being aware of things being out there online, I didn’t want to try to soak up “Ray” at all until there was an official release by official PassCode, which finally happened this morning whee!

Oh man! Those outfits remain pretty dang boss! And the song sounds pretty good in preview form! And it looks like they’re going for their own version of “Orchestra” on that set! Let’s do the whole thing! Continue reading →