The GB Album Club 011 - Clarity by PassCode

Hello again Giant Bomb community. It is me, Faceless, your East Coast Beast Host, presenting what I consider to be another special selection from the Giant Bomb Album Club: "Clarity" by PassCode, which was submitted by @chaser324.

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That's right! We have some motherfucking J-rock to for this session! K-On and other music themed anime fans rejoice because we had ourselves a Wonderful Weekend with PassCode (or Worrying Weekend depending on who you are), of which I and my other clubmates will elaborate on later, and you too can join the conversation using whichever music listening to method you prefer.

As for the necessary plugs and such: Last week, instead of talking about a specific album, we asked you what is your favorite album of this year so far; or "New Music Thread 2022" if anyone remembers that series of threads. And over on Discord, to celebrate spooky scary skeleton month, we're talking about horror movies where I watched A Serbian Film for the first time. ...don't do that. Just trust the word-of-mouth on how disturbing that movie is.

And with all that out of the way, let’s begin what I hope to be a passionate palaver over PassCode.

So this album is the collision of a few components that I don't regularly pay attention to or really know all that much about. Three things come to mind.

The first thing I don't really pay attention to is J-Pop, or really, any music that uses an idol or idol like structure. I say "don't pay attention to" as opposed to "not a fan of" because not being a fan of something can imply that I've had any exposure to it, and I really haven't. There's plenty of music from Japan I really like, and I don't consider myself one of those people who's above J-Pop, or pop in general. I just wasn't exposed to it and it never really called to me. (For what it's worth, I have seen White: Melody of the Curse, which is a horror movie about idols. That's about K-Pop though.)

The second thing is metal. We've spent a lot of time in this club talking about metal, to the extent that the cultural exchange between the metal fans and the non-metal fans of the group is one of the defining aspects of it. I'm in the latter camp, and I'm slowly warming up to it. But I'm still in the beginning of my metal journey, and I'm not willing to call myself someone who has substantial knowledge of it yet, let alone a fan.

The third is, of course, anime. (Whattup, forum on video game website!) The only anime shows I've seen are DBZ Kai and Paranoia Agent, rarely do I play any of the non-Nintendo games that come out of Japan (I'm sorry!!!), and though I've seen a relatively large chunk of anime movies for a non-anime fan (meaning that I have, in fact, seen some not made by Ghibli), that number is probably low compared to the many lovely anime people here. Sadly, I was the pretentious film snob kid in high school, not the weeb.

So yeah, this album was a bit of a bizarre experience for me. And for something that's so outside of anything I'd normally listen to, I'm shocked that I didn't react to it more strongly.

If I had to boil it down, I would say that I feel like I already got everything this album had to offer, both sonically and emotionally, well before it was over. To be fair, they do change up the sound quite a bit, going from metal to pop punk and various electronic sounds and many other things in between. But once the novelty of listening to metal idol music wore off, it started to lose my attention. The fun wasn't fun enough. The metal wasn't metal enough. The silliness wasn't as silly as I wanted it to be and the NOUN wasn't SAME NOUN IN ADJECTIVE FORM enough.

It's not "bad," mind you. I'm also assuming there's a ton of nuance I'm not picking up on, mainly because I don't know that it's there. However, while it's competent, for me, it wasn't transcendent, and I kept waiting for a catharsis that ultimately never came. All these disparate elements were combined in a way that made sense, but that merely provided order and not something I actually felt all that hardly.

However, maybe I just need to listen to some more J-Pop and metal before I can appreciate what this album has to offer. And I'm open to both.

FAVORITE SONGS: "Taking you out," "horoscope," and "Tonight"

You'd think that the most vocal anime fan of the group (and arguably this site) would instantly be over-the-moon for J-rock (as well as J-pop and their Korean counterparts) due to being familiar with anime and being relatively plunged in to an anime community, specifically MyAnimeList in my case, and that I would have been the more appropriate person to add this to the list. Well, the truth is often stranger than fiction. Though anime is within my top three interests, that interest is topped by tech death and prog metal by a relatively wide margin (with video games between the two), partially as a way counteract the negative stigmas that some people still hold on to about anime and anime fans. It goes as far as my wardrobe mainly consisting of band t-shirts of groups that I actually listen to, and, back in 2019, I bought an Ibanez GRX20 with the aspirations of being another disciple of Chuck Schuldiner. Balancing anime and death metal is a dichotomy that I've enjoyed about myself for over a decade; sort of having my cake and eating it too between appearing as one of the "cool metal guys" while keeping anime as a relative guilty pleasure depending on who I'm talking to. I mention all of that to say, despite wanting to take the reins on hosting for the music club for this week because of how J-rock is closely associated with anime, and I do a bit more than just merely wear being an anime fan on my sleeve in online spaces, my expectations were pretty low due to me wanting to maintain the separation between a type of media that I like but still has a nerdy stigma attached to it, and my musical interests which feel like they're on the opposite end of being a nerd. But, I might as well let the cat out of the bag: Despite me not wanting to like this album, I ended up liking this album.

This would be the point where I'd go through a few anime OPs and EDs and use J-rock to showcase my familiarity with the genre and give favorable comparisons to PassCode as a way to describe what I like about the album. And, sure, there are a couple here and there like Don't Say "Lazy" from K-On and Endless Soul from Ikkitousen, those are the only two that I can bring to the table. The groups that actually come more to mind are Anamanaguchi (for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game soundtrack) and Mindless Self Indulgence for the electropunk portion of the group, and bits of Jinjer, Kittie and Halestorm to represent the loud rock elements. Since my anime references are already outnumbered, I doubt that needing to be familiar with anime is necessary to become accustomed to J-rock, and I instead purpose the idea that there are groups of non-Japanese artists that can be likened to J-rock and have possibly influenced the genre; especially now-a-days where various communities and fandoms can easily be seen by one another thanks to various music and video streaming sites and social media. Also, Lady Gaga teaming up with the K-pop group Blackpink for Sour Candy was a thing two years ago, so I think it's fair to say that more eastern and western artists are becoming more interested in collaborating with one another these days, which further supports my theory.

Now, to finally talk about the music itself: I am very glad that the vocals don't resemble Motteke Sailor Fuku from Lucky Star, but instead played it straight with vocals. Instead of being shrill and annoying, they more or less err on the side of being the usual female-fronted rock vocals, albeit with some growls to have the bit of edge to the album, the latter of which signified to me that this album was going to be more enjoyable that I expected. The second signifier were to the synth passages and drum patterns. Again, I'm likening them to Anamanaguchi and Mindless Self Indulgence as my points a familiarity with electro rock and chiptune, and that same type a variety also works in Clarity by being the highest points of excitement for the album which lets the sung vocals and guitars be resting points. So even with the first two tracks, Projection and Dive into the Light in mind, this album surprisingly has a good amount of qualities that I generally want in music. Though I predictably like the high-octane track the most, Horoscope is an appreciated moment of calm for the album. It's very reminiscent of Chieko Kawabe's Be Your Girl from Elfen Lied.

So, with all of that said, despite my doubts, reservations, and expecting to place this album in the same tier as Michael Monroe, this album has a very high likelihood for being my greatest guilty pleasure of the group playlist so far. However, despite me making a case for separating this album and J-rock from anime soundtracks (and referencing four shows), I can only see myself listening to either this album or J-rock when I'm in the very specific mood for it, like when I'm playing a racing game and I apply anime liveries to my cars. But even if I don't put this album in rotation very often: Instead of just writing off J-rock because of how cringey the anime community can be about Japanese and Korean artists, especially the female-fronted bands, I can now say that I've listened to at least one J-rock album and I ended up liking it.

I liked this album a lot! Every song is like a pop-punk or metal band fighting for control with a rogue vocaloid in the best possible way. Songs jump genres and riffs at least 2-3 times per song without the gears grinding. It's an amazing trick. For as Frankenstein as this album is, it somehow works. My favorite song on the album is THE DAY WITH NOTHING.

Nope. Could not get behind this for a second. In fact, the poppier vocals seemed to make it a longer slog than the metal albums. It's the same kind of switcheroo musicianship at play but I can't pass that hurdle of Japanese vocalist version 1.03 that I feel I've heard a million times before.

This is the first time during the album club I've had to actively seek out a palette cleanser. Cornelius, save me.

I though this was fine. I'll admit to not listening with my full attention, but nothing reached out and grabbed me either. I might listen to it again, since I can just about recite next weeks album from memory.