A Very Chocolate Day: Pop Chocolat

“Lo-Fi Tech” quickly makes it clear that it’s an album opening track. A glance at Kyoto “girlie band” Pop Chocolat’s tracklisting for the recently released Trip mini-album confirms this fact, but such fact checking isn’t necessary here. The track opens with some fierce drum pounding before developing into an ever-developing piece of rock massiveness. More straightforward is the energetic “1000 Rounds,” which finds Pop Chocolat resembling a more serious Tokyo Police Club (the vaguely sci-fi bass work helps out a lot). True to their name, the band make sure to keep the proceedings a little sweet, adding some more melodic strings midway through. But it’s only a slight detour, as Pop Chocolat quickly jump back into neck-swinging rock. The band is currently touring Japan and plans to head to California later this month…give ’em a check. Listen here.