Have to admit that after the first 15-minutes or so I was fed up to the back teeth with the insufferable perky, cheerfulness of this bonkers ska sextet operating under the increasingly spurious banner of J-Pop (or Japanese Pop to those still blissfully ignorant of the term).
Fresh out of Japan, and fresh some paedo wet-dream if you ask me, six-girls just out of J-School and recently signed to Sony Music Japan, not coming up with material that belies their tender years so much as pitching their fairly narrow range of options (zany, power-popping, pogo-jumping brass-based, over optimized pop) quite squarely at even narrower range of expectations. So frankly, there’s no real surprises even if ‘stand-out’ tracks like ‘Yeah! Ska Dance’ and ‘Monkey Man (Monkey monkey Man)’ manage to raise a smile before it subsides just as quickly into a grimace. Incidentally, I don’t really know what their name means, and I don’t really care much either. Tones that are neither ‘mighty’ nor ‘boss’ as much as they clearly parp towards it.
Their first full lengther and should fortune favour the brave, very well might be their last.
One of their tracks was used in a TV commercial for POCKY, a very popular Japanese Candy. And if that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what will.