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Self-Promotion Plus: Honeydew And Sakanaction

Two positive reviews in this week’s Japan Times courtesy of me. One focuses on fuzzy indie-poppers Honeydew, who released a solid little debut album. Read about it here. Grab the CD, and also see them live if at all possible – I caught them in Osaka playing in an Irish Pub not remotely conducive to a live show last month. Despite the majority of the crowd watching a soccer game between Arsenal and…someone else…Honeydew put on a hell of a live show highlighted by the catchy-as-heck “Rusty Little Lemon.” Those folks downing 900-yen Guinness missed out on something pretty cool. Listen to an album sampler below.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/23386800″]

Even better is DocumentaLy, Sakanaction’s new album. I gush all about this LP over this way. This is pretty much the sort of album OGRE YOU ASSHOLE wanted to make (and whiffed big) with Homely, a collection of songs taking a sound the group has been playing around with for a while and simultaneously mastering it AND pushing it into a new direction (dance music meets emotional rock, done so that neither overpowers the other). Simply put, Sakanaction manage to sound both daring and primed for mainstream success, sounding like nothing else piped into the local Tower Records while also being catchy enough to, well, be piped into the local Tower Records. One of the year’s best.

The most recent single from DocumentaLy, “Endless,” originally seemed a little too slight for me, but has now grown to be just as strong as any of the other monster singles Sakanaction put together. The final portion is just massive. Check it out below.

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZZk2Mq_yjA”]