splendidezine.com
winter 2002
In the album insert photos, Kabochak appears to be an adorable little all-female Japanese three-piece. They look so darn cute playing their instruments! When you play the disc, the opening track kicks the cute factor up a couple more notches. It's fast, sugary, pseudo-bratty pop punk, and lyrics are all in Japanese! How much cuter can it get?
It doesn't get any cuter, actually. Yes, Kabochak may sound like the nauseating musical equivalent to Hello Kitty on the first song, but from the rest of this six-track overview spotlights their intelligent pop songcraft. The next song maintains the punk feel but is ten times smarter thanks to some keen harmonies and more mature vocals. Later tracks ditch the punk thing altogether and could very well blow you away. The hooks are astoundingly catchy yet profoundly sad, and they'll tug at your heartstrings even though you have no clue what the words are. The dynamics and dramatic shifts employed here would be huge in the States if some emo also-ran were whining atop them, but they sound much more mature with angelic restraint in the vocals. "DOKOMADEIKUNOKANA?" has an absolutely killer harmony, and is virtually guaranteed to make you want to hear more from the group.
The King Of Pumpkins EP deserves to be heard on the basis of the three show-stopping middle songs alone. Hopefully Kabochak will continue in that direction in the future.