My thoughts on “Junkie ~Boku wa Isonshō~”, the latest single from The Grateful a MogAAAz.
Release Date: October 7th 2020
Tracklist
1. Junkie ~Boku wa Isonshō~
2. Motto moete ikitai monda ze
3. Tabidachi no uta (IDOL FROM ANOTHER PLANET)
It has been pretty tough being an Idol fan who isn’t fortunate enough to live in Japan in 2020, I’m sure that much we can all agree on. Given everything going on in the world and there not being much prospect of any of it ending very soon, being able to enjoy Idol in person seems like a very distant prospect at this time. That’s not to mention all of the disbandments, graduations and what have you. I’ll admit that in recent months my fandom has really been struggling to remain ignited but there are still a few groups out there for me to hold a candle for.
One such group is The Grateful a MogAAAz, who most of you are probably fairly familiar with but hopefully they’re at least “that one group that Chiyo and Ami from Melon Batake are also in” in your minds. They have plenty of other colorful members besides those two of course, further bolstering their ranks with the addition of former Bury member Kotomi a few months ago who seems to have settled right in. The group in general has also been very active between now and the release of their debut single (review here) which is much appreciated by me given the scenario I laid out in the paragraph above.
“Junkie ~Boku wa Isonshō~” is MogAAAz second single and their first to feature the newly added Kotomi. It features 3 tracks and much like previous efforts, as well as many Melon Batake hits, several of them lean heavily on existing songs from Japan’s Punk and Rockabilly scene for their content. More on that as we get into the meat of the review though. If you’re a MogAAAz fan then nothing here should be unfamiliar to you as these tracks have been around in one form or another for months prior to this single’s release, but if you’re a potential new fan who has a taste for Punk Rock, Rockabilly or any of that sort of stuff then strap yourselves in and let’s get this party started.
First up we have the single’s title track “Junkie ~Boku wa Isonshō~” which is actually a cover of a song from the legendary Japanese Rock band SAMURAI so the tradition of including at least one cover on every MogAAAz release is continued here too. They’ve spruced things up a little for this version of the song but on the whole it is still very much in keeping with the Lo-fi style of the original, a decision that I’m a fan of actually as I think that’s what gives the track a lot of its personality in the first place. That’s not to say that the MogAAAz members aren’t also injecting plenty of their own personas into the mix either though, with each member’s distinct vocals and the usual level of exaggeration you’d expect from the group really going a long way to bringing the song to life while putting their own spin on things also. Outside of all of that, this is a pretty energetic Punk song with a nice layer of dirt on it to knock off that clean, overproduced tone that a lot of bands tend to go with these days so thumbs up from me for that. The lyrics of the verses have a nice flow to them and allow plenty of room for the MogAAAz members to splash some color onto the song and there’s some pretty well placed hooks throughout as well. For most though the chorus is probably going to be the standout feature of this track, with a positively catchy and sing-along-able section that gets stuck in the brain right away and will have you humming along in no time at all. If that wasn’t enough there’s also a pretty awesome guitar solo mid-way through the track that serves as an interlude of sorts before we swing back around for one last volley from what had already been an incredibly enjoyable listen up to that point. They already had a great place from which to start from but MogAAAz definitely made this track their own and it’s right up there with some of my favorites from their small but growing discography.
We then move on to something a bit more original for the single’s second track “Motto moete ikitai monda ze” which opens with some pretty ominous sounding synthesizers which set a pretty dark tone as they slowly begin to build up into the actual instrumental for the track. Synthesizers are still a very heavy feature once the song is in full swing, something that’s probably not what most people would expect from a group like MogAAAz but they still manage to weave this all into a pretty familiar sounding style somehow so it doesn’t end up sounding all that out of place at all really. The vocals have a Lo-fi quality to them that further helps to tie things together and there’s also a somewhat creepy vibe to the slow, almost sinister sounding way in which the members are delivering their lines. At the same time though I do really like the smoothness of it all, along with the rich quality of the vocal tones and the subtle but highly effective lyrical hooks certainly don’t hurt things either. There’s a bit more volume and energy to things for the choruses but not to the point where you’d say that they sound out of place by any means, in fact I think they could have maybe done a bit more to really differentiate them so they stood out a bit more but that’s just me. Still enjoyable for sure with that smooth flow and punchy synth instrumental but that’s just what I would have done if I was the one making the decisions. They really nailed the climax of the track though in my view, with everything getting a bit more wild and less deliberate as both the vocals and the instrumental raced towards the finish line. I suppose in some ways this track plays out a bit like a Ballad but MogAAAz have done a ton of stuff here to keep things interesting and make this song well worth your time to check out.
Closing things out we have our second b-side, “Tabidachi no uta (IDOL FROM ANOTHER PLANET)” which is another cover but this time of a Melon Batake a go go song. You can read my thoughts on their version of the track here if you’d like to by the way. The MogAAAz take on things features an extended instrumental intro to flesh things out a bit more and provide a bit more of a lead-in than we got from the original, something I didn’t find myself minding too much despite there not being too too much actually going on outside of a nice synthesizer melody. From there things settle into a fairly familiar sounding take on everything, though this version does contain quite a bit more echo in general and a little less punch from the drums in the instrumental. It’s enough to make things sound different and fresh if you’ve already given the Melon Batake version a lot of play time, while not doing away with everything that made the song so great in the first place. It still has plenty of that triumphant, 80s Synth-Pop feel to it that made me fall in love with the track in the first place and depending on how you look at things I suppose you could argue that it contains even more of that give how synthesizer heavy things are. They also did a great job of putting enough of the MogAAAz members’ personality into things that it’s very easy to distinguish that this isn’t just a copy and paste of something that already worked very well in the past. I can normally go either way when it comes to covers for this reason but in this case I think it worked out rather well and hey, maybe it opens the door for a Melon Batake cover of a MogAAAz song sometime in the future as well. Wouldn’t that be pretty cool too folks?
I really like what they’ve done here with “Junkie ~Boku wa Isonshō~” as a single overall. It follows a lot of the usual themes of a Melon/MogAAAz release in that we paid a glowing tribute to one of the production team’s influences, reworked an already fairly well known song into something more distinctly the group’s own and also offered up something original to balance everything out. Lots to enjoy from all 3 tracks depending on what you’re personally looking for and a very strong expansion of the group’s slow but steadily growing discography.
Sadly there are some big changes on the horizon for The Grateful a MogAAAz, with the departure of Yawaragi Menma and Shimizu Runa having just been announced the other day, though the group does intend to continue on in some fashion at least. That’s great news as along with Melon Batake, MogAAAz seem to have been more resilient than most this year but how long that can last remains to be seen. I’m personally hoping it’s going to be for a long while yet as both groups are some of my main reasons for being able to stick with this hobby as much as I have since everything went south. Here’s to what has been as successful of a 2020 as anyone could have hoped for and let’s hope they can all maintain and build on that momentum going into 2021.
Rating:
