Some thoughts on “BLOOD COMPACT”, the second EP from GO TO THE BEDS.
Release Date: July 21st 2021
Serial Number: WPCL-13293
Format: CD
Tracklist
1. Meaningless
2. Sonnan ja Baby
3. Please!!
4. GORI GORI
5. Dear
6. OK
Buy: HMV (JP), Tower Records (JP), Disk Union (JP), Amazon (JP), CDJapan (EN)
Stream: Here
At the time the split of the much beloved GANG PARADE into two separate groups felt like it was probably the right thing to do given the circumstances. You had founder and leader Kamiya Saki leaving and for whatever reason the group had ballooned to an unreasonably large amount of girls so in that regard I don’t think anyone looking at things logically would say it was a terrible call from the WACK camp. Two groups also means twice as much opportunity for brand exposure, revenue generation and all of that fun business stuff that only I like to get into the weeds on it seems.
Anyway, this all resulted in the formation of GO TO THE BEDS and PARADISES. The former featuring more of the group’s tenured members and the latter generally consisting of girls who had come along a bit more recently I guess. I was fairly optimistic to begin with that this would all work out quite neatly. Well, it worked out pretty well for GO TO THE BEDS who appear to be going from strength to strength over a year later but unfortunately the same can’t exactly be said for PARADISES…but that’s story for another time I think.
GO TO THE BEDS recently put out their second EP “BLOOD COMPACT” and unlike several of their previous efforts, this one doesn’t seem to be tied up too tightly with much of anything. I kinda liked their video game soundtrack work for what it’s worth and their “REINCARNATION” EP (review here) also had some pretty cool moments so this is definitely a group that can deliver for me musically which is great. Never really sure what to expect when it comes to some of these WACK groups though so it’s with an open mind and relaxed expectations that I began my listening adventure with this one.
While “BLOOD COMPACT” does have that quintessential WACK “sound” all over each of its tracks, it also continues a somewhat recent trend of the production team trying to pull in various elements from other popular genres to hopefully make people like me who think this all sounds the same shut up. This time out they seem to be taking inspiration from that “Awkward Pop” trend that is pretty popular with the kids these days, you know where the vocal delivery is a bit out of sorts and the subject matter might not make a whole lot of sense and you might even be forgiven for thinking they’re just stringing ear pleasing words and beats together with little to no actual substance…man I sound old right now.
Getting away from that a bit, this release does have some interesting moments on tracks like “Meaningless” and “Sonnan ja Baby” for a lot of the reasons that I just listed above actually. It’s not really a style of song you hear from Idol groups currently and there is something undeniably catchy about it all. The rapping flows rather nicely, the beats are quirky and catch the ear but if you’re not all about this sort of thing then like me I might leave you feeling a bit lukewarm about it all.
That said, there are plenty of tried and true WACK hits on this one too. From the brooding, distorted “Please!!” and “GORI GORI”, which kinda bridges the new and old influences in a weird way, to classic Rock style Ballads in “Dear” and “OK” there’s more than enough familiarity to go along with the new stuff. Quite a wide ranging selection of songs here but they’ve managed to tie it all in together quite nicely someone and the entire EP actually ends up feeling like one cohesive package which isn’t easy to pull off let me tell you.
I always felt like GANG PARADE were the “throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks” group out of the WACK family and I guess in some ways this has carried over to GO TO THE BEDS. Lots of different styles and influences are going into this EP, that much is clear but they do a good job of working in that familiar WACK style too so there’s also a comforting sense of familiarity to it all as well.
This sort of approach doesn’t always work but I think in this case the results can objectively be considered to be positive. I might not particularly care for the genre of music that GO TO THE BEDS are drawing on for inspiration this time out but their take on it a good one and even if it isn’t for me there’s still a couple of tracks for older heads like myself and as such I’d say they’ve struck a pretty nice balance here on the whole.
