[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKZCU2PeC3E”]
Recently, I went to a music festival mere steps from my home in Osaka featuring a lot of artists I wanted to check out. The ones I caught sounded as good as expected – Nagoya’s Pop-Office wowed about 12 people who crammed into a recording booth converted into a stage, Hosome put on a typically matter-slicing-fast show and Schloder won the crowd over en route to one of the rowdiest performances I saw. Yet the overall fest experience became really annoying really fast, set times delayed not by minutes but hours, some groups going on nearly three hours later than advertised. This meant one of the Osaka groups I wanted to check out, JinnyOops!, schedule 3 A.M. set might have happened at eight in the morning. This group recently underwent an image makeover, trading in quirky horn blasts in favor of “fashionable punk” chic. I wanted to see this change in person, as previous tracks posted online saw this shift making them sound closer to fellow Osaka J-Rock ladies SCANDAL, before SCANDAL went to shit.
Now, I can at least see what they look like! The video for “雷鳴SHOCKING” appears above, and to be honest nothing of interest happens in the clip unless seeing bands play their instruments in a tunnel pop up in the “YouTube recommends” box. Yet the song remains a pop-leaning stab at more aggressive rock from a group that used to lean a bit too much on novelty. Watch above.