exPop!!!! volume27 Report

This live report highlights Clean Of Core who will sell their first album on HearJapan in the Autumn of this year.

CINRA Presents「exPoP!!!!! volume27」@ Shibuya O-Nest Susquatch, Clean of Core, Silica, Reito

From the JR Shibuya station, find your way to the 109 Building, taking the left flank down Dogenzaka. You’ll see a sushi joint called Daidokoya, at which point turn right and take the second right thereafter. You should be in-between O-West and O-East. The am/pm under O-West hides an elevator to its left; take it to the 6th floor and you’ll find the bar level of O-Nest. The bar acts mostly as a lobby to the 5th floor live venue, which looks about the same as any other set, only with considerably less standing room. O-Nest and O-Crest are the minor venues compared to O-West and O-East; the billing on the venues’ regular events reflects this.

To say that opening act Reito was a trip is something of an understatement. The show started fifteen minutes later than scheduled, leaving those unaware of what was to come particularly in the dark. Reito is essentially one rapper (likely named Reito) with another nearby on a laptop controlling the beats and/or the hallucination-worthy imagery presented on the screen behind them. For a Japanese rapper, Reito comes off as particularly unique in that a) he almost never uses English in his lyrics, if at all, and b) he raps with a voice somewhat higher than his contemporaries. He also gets credit for having some of the catchiest choruses in recent memory, although without any MC or crowd interaction to speak of, you’ll have to look up the song titles on your own.

Instrumental rockers Clean of Core’s set was twice as long as Reito’s, but no one seemed to care. Instead, the audience was likely trying its best to figure out which part of their music “drove” the band, whether it was the drummer’s frantic rolls, the bassist’s riffs – often times heavier than the lead guitar’s – or the guitarist-keyboardist’s happily erratic rhythm. I use words like frantic and erratic only because “fantastic” somehow seems like the wrong word to use. Clean of Core was, indeed, fantastic, however, eliciting loud cheers from the audience at most every turn. Credit goes to the bassist for, despite swinging his weapon wildly, never hitting any instruments or lighting.

Silica was an unexpected joy. For all intents and purposes, this is the closest thing to screamo Japan seems to have had in a while – think 175R as if sponsored by Hot Topic; let us assume, however, that this is by no means a bad thing. Silica put in as much energy as Clean of Core in as much time as Reito’s set. Once again, the members enjoyed themselves on stage; once again, the bassist found it necessary to very literally battle his demons on stage. He apparently lost during the last song, though, falling backwards to the side of the stage. He would leave through the crowd at the very end, much to everyone’s further amusement. Let it be said that as of this point, Silica garnered the most audience headbang interest thus far.

Yet, despite bearing a softer set of tunes than the first three artists, Susquatch took the lead fairly quickly. Celebrating their May-released first full album, the trio (with one support member for the live), the band struck an eerily Ajikan chord. While their choruses weren’t as memorable as Reito’s, or their style as fervent as Clean of Core’s or even Silica’s, their songs – all in an interesting rendition of English – were nothing short of crowd-pleasing. Ajikan, or perhaps Bump of Chicken might one day listen to the radio and mistake Susquatch’s songs as their own, much in the same way Journey did when finding ex-vocalist Augeri. For now, though, they’ll have to settle for energizing making hundreds of people at a time in their “In the World” tour, which runs through early August.

Concert report in partnership with THEOTHEREAST. Written by Remy Zane.