With their colourful anime aesthetic and love of Harajuku fashion, at first glance it would be understandable if you mistook HANABIE. as some kind of vapid idol group. However, formulate preconceived ideas at your peril because this Tokyo quartet will take great delight in smashing them to smithereens with their earthshaking sound. After last year’s critically-acclaimed album Reborn Superstar (reviewed here), the band make a triumphant return with their latest release Bucchigiri Tokyo, a selection of six songs that’s certain to raise their standing in the metal community (and beyond).
With a lovely chunky riff the opening track picks right up where Reborn Superstar left off. It’s a pugnacious way to open the door into HANABIE.’s world and sets a dangerous precedent. Operating with wrecking ball swing, ‘Bucchigiri Tokyo’ suggests you buckle up because this will be a rumbustious roller coaster of a ride that’ll raise you to heady highs one moment then drop you down the next. It’s an approach best exemplified by the track ‘GAMBLER’, a song that captures the thrill of a deck of cards being being shuffled as the track bounces around like a pair of tumbling dice.
While many of their peers attire themselves all in black and sing about dark subject matter, HANABIE. exploded onto the scene in the bright splash of colour that is Harajuku street fashion and sang about Gen-Z issues, but that’s just two of the juxtapositions that conspire to make Bucchigiri Tokyo such a rewarding experience. The vocals osculate between cute yaps and demonic growls whilst humongous riffs tower over Nintendocore motifs. There’s a wonderful elasticity to the band’s sound that has found them incorporating everything from hardcore to nu metal via hip hop and electronica, and all delivered with their trademark metalcore punch. Bucchigiri Tokyo contains elements of all of these (and more), played by a core of seasoned musicians who’ve been together for almost a decade which makes their flitting from genre to genre quite seamless and it is never knowing in what guise the band will appear next that makes this release so intriguing and holds the listener’s attention throughout.
Those lucky enough to have seen HANABIE. live (reviewed here and here) will know what an explosive live act the band are. It’s not an easy thing to replicate in the studio, but this release does a good job in bottling some of that magic. ‘Bonus Guilty Time’ is an evasive closer and one that poses as many questions as it answers. Who knows what 2025 has in store, but with HANABIE. around, it’s sure too be entertaining.
- Bucchigiri Tokyo is released via Sony Music on 4th December 2024 (available here).
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Track List:
- Bucchigiri Tokyo
- Metamorphose!
- OTAKU Lovely Densetsu
- GAMBLER
- Ito Okashi My Type
- Bonus Guilty Time
