New Asian Kung-Fu Generation: “Shinseiki no Love Song”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApgUY2qwt3E&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

This is so, so…. different! I have never heard AKG like this, at first I didn’t even recognize them. I’ve heard every AKG song, and they have never made a song like this. I’m not sure how I feel. I like it, but it doesn’t really sound AKG, I mean it does have its moments that are truly AKG, but overall it doesn’t have that AKG feel to it. I guess I will just have to wait and see where AKG goes with this. I am interested to hear the other song on the single too.

YouTube commenter sasuke61694 has the right idea even if it could have been said in one sentence. Asian Kung-Fu Generation have always struck me as the J-Rock band for people who don’t care about J-Rock, there brand of fast and loud rock being both very representative of the genre in Japan while also being good enough you wouldn’t be faulted if you didn’t dig any deeper into the scene. There new single “Shinseiki no Love Song” definitely comes as a bit of a surprise, at least for the first three minutes. The first part of the song’s dominated by backwards guitars and surprisingly creepy spoken singing (check the weird vocal effect lurking in the back of the mix). It’s a song content to swim around in it’s own head, Asian Kung-Fu Generation letting the music work itself out…at least until “Shinseiki no Love Song” transforms into a more straightforward piece of anthemic rock at its midpoint. The single is out this week.