Hanabie
Bucchigiri Tokyo
Sony Music
Don’t let the cutesy Anime aesthetic fool you, Hanabie produce music that hits hard. They’ve taken the recent trend of fusing clean and growled vocals twisting it with a garniture mix of throaty deathcore, clean near spoken word and yes, higher register cartoonishness. Combine that with a progressive approach to song structure and some serious talent musicianship wise and what you get is a peek into where metal may be heading. Japan has made a habit of turning out forward thinking high quality acts recently and this fine four piece may be the best of the bunch to date. Certainly they have huge potential. The ostensibly metalcore framework they build their songs around allows for so much substance from exciting synths to lovely timing changes. Remember when Blade Runner came out and introduced us to a version of the future that was both neon and gritty too? Well Bucchigirl Tokyo could be the soundtrack to that world. This is so good it could gate crash a few record of the year shortlists.
Review by Gary Trueman