Sono Kangeki To Koroku — Ha Ha Ha
The Japanese rock landscape is undergoing a particularly fruitful period, and beyond the sheer quality of so many young outfits is the different perspectives they approach the genre. A kurayamisaka plays arena-ready shout-alongs rich with narratives and details recalling short film. Trooper Salute are emerging as melancholy masters of versatility, with their debut featuring explorations of chamber pop, math rock and so much more while always letting its human heart sit in the center. TV Tairiku Ondo is pure limbs-flailing energy. We will get to them below, but Yukiguni moves slowly to create an icy emotional drift. On and on I could go.
With first full-length album Ha Ha Ha, Sono Kangeki To Koroku step up to offer up a set building and releasing, with lyrics closer to koans. On their longplayer debut, the band offers up a journey at times sludgy and explosive, pointed towards catharsis.
Listening to Ha Ha Ha can feel like trudging through some kind of overgrown forest, where the view of what lays ahead is always obscured. That seems intentional by Sono — a quartet consisting of folks from a variety of other existing indie-rock acts — with three “Iriguchi” (“Entrances”) dotting the album almost like checkpoints. It also seems like a declaration of intent, of this being an album you don’t shuffle through but follow as it goes from the lurch of that first “Iriguchi” and “ruri” before arriving at parts more knotty on “botai” and “HOUSE!!” There’s space to reflect bordering on slowcore (“Yo Wa Koru”) and sudden chases (“Iriguchi San”). It’s a balance between just what speed, but an album always in motion towards a goal while generating a sense of constant eeriness, unaware of what the next bend brings.
Yet none of that journey would matter without Rika Nakanishi as narrator, with her singing giving the spirit to Ha Ha Ha. The lyrics themselves appear as lines existing as self-contained poetry, translated into English they come out like “butterflies fluttering in the forest, lapis lazuli” on “ruri” or as downright surreal like how she says the word “tomato” on “HOUSE!!” Yet lurking beneath that is a sense of loss and pain, artistic expressions of hurt revealing quite direct daggers (“I resent my job and you” on “Kage,” damn) and a lot of references to blood.
Whether vague or aimed at the jugular, Nakanishi makes them sound fantastic thanks to a vocal range going from sing-speak to pure force, the latter on full pummeling display on the start-stop reckoning of “Saigo No Hanazoku.” It can be pained, wistful or even direct, but it turns the trip of Ha Ha Ha into an absorbing one, all the way up to closer, wherein she reaches something approaching resolution, and in the process shows how Sono fit into this new era. Listen above.
blue web. — Blue Reverberation
Vocaloid as an instrument has always largely been used to reflect the creativity of the time. Early songs celebrated creation itself, while recently there’s been what I’d call a more “online aesthetic” built around unease and creepiness. To some degree, it’s a tool used to capture the state of online art.
Which in some way makes it a fitting compliment to shoegaze in the 2020s, a style absolutely embraced by too-online types. Yet what an album like Blue Reverberation, the first from the team of nerdneko and yaginiwa, reminds is how Vocaloid ends up being just a textural choice in this world. The songs here lean towards usual shoegaze lyrical thought — longing and love lost and a feeling of downer-ism stretching way back — but just delivered by Hatsune Miku. She sounds fine in this setting, especially when joined by more web-leaning touches like breakbeats and party-starting samples on “SUMMERENDS,” but largely just being a new sonic wrinkle to a long-running sound. Get it here, or listen above.
Yukiguni — claras
We already mentioned these guys above…and damn, are they good at doing what they do. Once again, Yukiguni translate the ho-hum existence of life in the sleepier parts of a city into something both warm (via the singing) and frosty (by the pace of it all). You’d think the band’s sound would start leaving people a bit cold by this point, but they know how to make every nook and cranny of space their songwriting approach, and here they show it again in how these songs build without ever toppling over. Listen above.
Acid Pink — DPGK
Acid Pink — fronted by genre-smasher Shirome, which is my gateway into this project — bill themselves as making "POP MUSiiiiiiiiiC" but there’s a very clear rock energy running through the DPGK EP, even if it is buried under rave-out electronics and Jersey Club squeaks. This is a fusion of the club and live house…so, Loft in Shinjuku, turned into a listening experience…featuring Skittles-bright dance-pop with guitars shredding across on “By Your Side” and a hyperactive garage band energy guiding the opening “Orutanatai MU.” Perhaps its the subversive edge that makes me associate it with rock so much. Listen above.
‘97,Kids Featuring Maruri — “LAKILAKI GIRL”
Pop-punk really needs to do something interesting to catch my attention, or at least be delivered by an artist generally upending things to get on my radar. Or…it can lean into gyaru imagery and make me interested. Such is the case with ‘97,Kids, who recruit singer Maruri for this summer hopper. It works best when her voice get multi-tracked into tanned euphoria. Oh, also when they pivot into rap for a little bit, adding some nu-metal edge to this otherwise poppy cut. Listen above.
Or! Check out their greater body of work to discover…a really weird trio not far removed from the hyperpop I regularly post, and an outfit openly celebrating their love of Vocaloid…which definitely bleeds over into how they play with their voices. If this is what everyone in California listened to when I was growing up, maybe I would have gone to the Warped Tour!
Milk Talk — “Milk And Honey”
I could go on about the funkiness of this all or just admit that I’m a Milk Talk superfan…or, for “Milk And Honey,” I can celebrate the smaller details leading to such a sweet listening experience. The extended food1 metaphor which turns this into the sexiest song the duo have released to date! The heavier guitar tone during the chorus that gives this intensity! The space given for “milk and honey!” The keyboard jamming in the second half! Listen above.
usabeni And A-bug — “Heart Lag”
OK, the rock theme couldn’t hold the entire way through. I’m sorry Mountain Day.
Former underground idol turned just-underground artist usabeni links up with producer A-bug for a jittery dance number about navigating love in the digital age. A great set of internet metaphors used for finding love, the duo find a nice driving sound that makes the chase for some 2020s love feel more urgent and fun than it might have any right to be. Listen above.
Given my August schedule…that might be the best way to get more writing from me until things lighten up in September (famous last words). It’s also your way to see what I think about K-On! after watching it for the first time recently.
Make Believe Bonus: K-On!
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Aug 8
To watch the anime adaptation of high-schoolers-saving-their-rock-club manga K-On! in 2026 is to be transported to a time that might as well be the stone age.
Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.
timelesz — “Kienai Hanabi” (425,212 Copies Sold)
Pretty straightforward mid-tempo fare, complete with cliche lyrics about watching the fireworks in the summer and clinging to memories of good times spent with others. It is as standard as this gets, without being grating but also not leaving much of an impression…more a sparkler than a rocket.
I will say…the most interesting part of “Kienai Hanabi” might be the very we-know-what-we-are-doing music video. There’s fan service galore in every glance and shoulder leaned on here, with a lot of food worked in, including a really big chicken burger and this brief shot…
Very savvy for the modern male group fan! Listen above.
Rapper Tohji is currently heading towards “retirement” at the end of 2026, and just completed a big show this past weekend. As part of that, he announced his very last gig before heading off into the sunset. And it will be at…Tokyo Dome!?!?!
When I saw that I was pretty caught off guard, though there is precedent for something like this. In 2024, Kanagawa rap outfit BAD HOP held their final concert at Tokyo Dome, using it as one final blow out before heading separate ways. Based on a tweet shared by Tohji after this announcement, he wanted to just end things on a quieter note, but his team presented him with Tokyo Dome and he decided to go for it. This mostly makes me wonder “how much time do you actually need to book Tokyo Dome, as this implies they did it like with six months notice?” Yet beyond that, I am interested to see what I kind of think is the weirdest artist to hold a show here, and I’ll probably buy a ticket!
YOASOBI is on a North American tour right now and every clip I see from it is like…damn they draw huge audiences. Also…YOASOBI burrito coming to Taco Bell Japan!
The City Pop Waves festival was held in London this past weekend, and similarly had a great turnout. It also sounds like Masayoshi Takanaka teased an even bigger show in the city next year.
New Snow Man album coming in a few months…I thought Mrs. GREEN APPLE would have a lock on highest-selling CD of the fall, but here comes the one group that could beat them!
Speaking of the APPLE dumpling gang…they announced they’ll be taking a summer vacation. That really just underlines how big they are, that they can take a break right before the release of a new album and not sweat a thing.
Otoboke Beaver apologized for an incident wherein member Yoyoyoshie threw a guitar into the audience at an April 9 show in Osaka, striking a customer directly resulting in serious injury requiring seven stitches. The real surprise is how this happened four months ago without being reported or resulting in the band saying anything until now.
During a festival set, a guy with some hand-drawn signs appeared on stage during Golden Bomber’s performance. His message was about Epstein conspiracies involving the Japanese Royal Family and mass DNA spreading or something. In most circumstances, this would be noted as weird. But because Golden Bomber have long loved silly stunts, people had know idea if this was intentional or not…until the band revealed it wasn’t. Life, the funniest comedy of them all.
Not sure that I’ve seen this before…but L’arc-en-Ciel shared a playlist of what songs they’ll play during their Summer Sonic headlining set this coming weekend. Spoilers below, but also a neat idea to get people excited / include those not attending.
Tatsuro Yamashita announces his first live album in 37 years.
NORI NORI CORE, the AI-centric YouTube channel I’ve written about previously for The Japan Times, ended its experiment with a dopamine-blasted remix of Kenshi Yonezu.
Asobi System launches Asobi System USA in an effort to tap into the growing American appetite for Japanese music. Good on them getting on this, it’s not like they had signs in the past to give this a go.
Suiyoubi No Campanella performed at a Chiba Lotte Marines game.
Pure observation but…is JASRAC running some good will campaign? They got PAS TASTA to do a song and now they were handing out little fans at my local summer festival this weekend…is this targeted AT ME?
Last…songs from the soundtrack to the recent smash Chiikawa movie are shooting up the Billboard Japan charts. Which funny enough means that Shugo Tokumaru is rising up the rankings.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2026 Spotify Playlist here!
Condiment? I guess that is what honey is but it feels miles away from ketchup or Chik-Fil-A sauce…
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