It took a while, but the release of the just flabbergastingly excellent MIRRORS album was bound to yield another in the long line of must-watch Yanakoto Sotto Mute music videos. I was getting antsy! But they delivered today in a way that even I, a person who holds them up as actual, absolute perfection, couldn’t have anticipated. This is power-gorgeous:

Are there, like, a lot of oppressive nun-led all-girls Catholic schools in Japan?

So let’s do the math: They’re in the mix for Album of the Year, plus right here arguably Song of the Year and Video of the Year, will visit the USA in August and may yet be able to release another record? Yeah, they’re killing 2018.

I’d love to say that YSM threw down an excellence gauntlet here, but that’s not how Yanamyu rolls, my dudes. They content themselves with simply being better than everybody else, never needing to put on airs, never needing to puff themselves up, just crushing the hell out of their music and giving it multimedia expression in ways that should make art directors sit up straighter. They’re exquisite.

This is what you’ll be able to see live in Anaheim, by the way. It’s a shame that we can’t package them up with some other art rock acts and go on a tour of college campuses and fringe festivals (they wouldn’t make back their travel costs!). The world needs Yanamyu more than it needs most things, and good people deserve to experience good things.