Hello Sleepwalkers has a new mini-album that came out this week, and the first track is the song Sundown from that release. After that is Rollin and New World, also both from the new release. They have another recent mini-album called Unplugged Demos full of acoustic tracks, but I couldn’t find any of them that had permission set to stream in North America.
I have been ranting about how good ONE OK ROCK is since 2011, and they have gotten nothing but better since then. I finally had the chance to see them live on October 6th, 2015, in a tiny little club in a major East Coast city, and unlike most bands I have heard they sounded even better live and in person than they did in the studio recordings. That was the same tour when everyone in the US became aware of them, so I don’t need to rant any more, or even speak, really. Here are two of their best recent tracks, American Girls (pretty much the opposite of Guess Who’s American Woman) posted on February 1st, and We Are posted on January 6th.
The wonderful voice of Yūko Suzuhana has been driving the Wagakki Band for years, a band blending traditional Japanese musical instruments and Western rock in ways never heard before. This past November, she finally got her first solo mini-album, Cradle Of Eternity, with a different musical sensibility but that same powerful voice. Here is a taste of each, first the song Cradle Of Eternity from the album of the same name, then the track Strong Fate from the Wagakki Band, and finally the more mellow Wagakki Band track Okinota yu, just posted Tuesday. Enjoy!
Earlier this week I mentioned the upcoming North American theatrical release of Your Name, and included the main theme by RADWIMPS. I thought this was a good opportunity to share a few other of their many songs, the first of which is the 2017 version of Iin Desu Ka, AKA Is That OK?, recorded just a few weeks ago. The next track is Kigō to Shite or As a Sign from December of 2015, the third is their 2009 song The Mind, the last is 2011’s With You and Sheep and Blue, or close to that. The band’s been around since 2001 and got their first major record deal in 2005, and have released a lot of music over the years. If you like what you hear, there is a lot more of it to track down and listen to.
Japan’s number 1 film of 2016 was Your Name from Makoto Shinkai, and it will be in movie theaters in the US beginning on April 7th. Funimation Films is presenting it, with the options of seeing it in the original Japanese with English subtitles, or with an English language soundtrack. If you don’t know Makoto Shinkai, you have probably already seen one of his groundbreaking animations, such as 5 Centimeters Per Second or the Children Who Chase Lost Voices, or the amazing Voices of a Distant Star which he did entirely himself. He is being referred to as the Next Miyazaki by a number of critics and reviewers around the world, and he has also written novels, stories, and Manga, and helped create video games. If this movie is playing anywhere near you, you should absolutely check it out. Did I mention the RADWIMPS had a hand in the soundtrack for this one, and are translating four of their songs into English for the English language version? I added the full length version of Zenzenzense as the last video in this post, the tease in the trailer was not enough.
ALL OFF are a Japanese band that formed back in 2004, starting off by playing the festival circuit, becoming an overnight sensation after a decade of killer rock and hard rock. The first track is Refrain Boy, which is the ending theme song for the anime Mob Psycho 100 and was posted last August. If you have your VR headset handy, put it on for the second song, a 360 degree VR version of In Shadows posted about 4 weeks ago. The last one for this week is One More Chance!!, their 2015 major debut track that launched them internationally,