I hate the description “Beatle-esque” as much as the next nerd, but sometimes you just have to face the truth: as long as people come together to make music, a handful of folks are bound to draw inspiration primarily from the 1960s. Three-piece Asunarou are one such band where I might as well pick a random ’60s rock band out of a hat to describe them (Strawberry Alarm Clock? Why not!). I mean, they count Dennis Wilson as a MySpace pal – clues like that tell you everything you need to know about their sound.
Making your influences painfully obvious isn’t a drawback, though, so long as the band in question puts out quality music. Asunarou pass that test. “トマト畑にさよならを,” off of their forthcoming debut LP Talking About Happiness, captures catchy-but-goofy flower power rock down to a tee. Listening to the hippie-dippy guitar hop and Muppet chanting brings to mind images of people running through a field dropping acid, the landscape slowly transforming into some Yellow Submarine film cells. Asunarou play it all with a bit of a grin (the lead singer repeats “good good, good vibrations” a few times at one point), but they are still able to hit on that essential ’60s quality of being irresistibly catchy regardless of how weird things get. Listen to it at their Wilson-ful MySpace.