The Singles Jukebox

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[6.17]

Cassy Gress: “Yoake Mae” sounds like capitalism, like an American shopping mall, at the height of the mall era–but only if you have any positive feelings about malls. I can just about see the neon storefronts, spray-puffed bangs, and fountains full of pennies.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: It’s funny looking back on what I wrote about Passepied last time they popped up around these parts. At the time their nervy Sotaisei-Riron-inspired rock was a welcome alternative to the blooming lunkheaded sounds starting to rise. Those aggressive bands remain, but Japan in 2016 is in the middle of a full-on band boom, and the twisty sounds Passepied have been playing around with are now much more commonplace, even being the backbone of year-defining songs. “Yoake Mae” serves as a reminder of just where Passepied fall in this new hierarchy. It’s more straightforward and festival-eyeing than anything Sotaisei Riron get up to nowadays, but less neurotic than label-mate Gesu no Kiwami Otome (who you might also not hear from for some time!). It is as solid a mainstream distillation of this tempo-changing approach, lacking tension but still intriguing enough placed in the context of Japanese mainstream music.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Nothing too fancy here, but if the disco thump and stream-of-consciousness topline get to be a bit much — and I really think they do — that spiralling piano/guitar combo is a lifeline.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I don’t know if I’d be as charmed by an English-speaking act doing exactly this sort of late-70s fusion-on-amphetamines, but what’s the point of listening to music from all around the world if you’re going to judge it all by the same criteria? And anyway no native English speaker would make remotely the same vocal choices Natsuki Ogoda does.
[7]

Jibril Yassin: The piano hook that starts off the song, which Passepied constantly return to, doesn’t seem capable of giving them the liftoff they want. Save for the dramatic middle eight that has me demanding a burnout guitar solo, any gained momentum seems to fall flat. 
[6]

Sonia Yang: “Yoake Mae” is a welcome comeback after a belated sophomore slump (third studio album Shabaraba was limp commercial mush compared to stellar second LP Makunouchi-ISM). This is the most minimalist I’ve heard the band in a while; there’s a sense that they’re leaving the listener in the dark as the song unfurls. Despite the full arrangement, they’re not firing all their guns at once. The mildly menacing bass provides good contrast to the shrill vocal, and the keyboards are clean and crisp. The bridge is my favorite, taking cues from last year’s “Tsukuri Bayashi” (but to a lesser extent), letting the instrumentals burst before falling back even sparser. “Yoake Mae” is the epitome of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts; each element (the chorus, the keyboard riff, etc.) is rather unimpressive in isolation but put together with a wise utilization of space, comes alive. That said, the song is still a bit underwhelming considering their track record.  “Yoake Mae” means “before dawn,” and I hope it hints at greater things to come.
[7]