ThoughtsCascade wins lots of brownie points with me. As a band they're the epitomy of tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and sugared-up cuteness. Nothing is sacred, nothing is beneath them, and no hideously clashing fashion-statement is off-limits. They're the cutest group of completely insane bastards I've seen on one stage since Spread Beaver. Their music is a collection of catchy feel-good (sometimes laugh-out-loud) goofiness with a few serious, and seriously beautiful ballads thrown in to prove their versatility as musicians. Cascade defies catagorization. Even in Indies Cascade was doing some damnned bizarre things musically, leading them to be lumped in with "Visual Kei" for lack of anywhere else to put them ^^;;; Now they seem to be banished to the pages of Pati Pati, Arena 37C and Pop Beat with the J-pop acts, but they can still snag pages in Fool's Mate when they release new singles. For me... Cascade is the anti-Visual Kei band. They are intentionally fashion-rejects. They don't seem to place as much value on their appearances as they do on the musical ability and friendship they share. They have parodied VK bands quite blatently in in the past. And they write the kind of pixie-stick geek music you imagine accompanies most of Mana's worst nightmares. Cascade is a welcome and edgy escape from the ego-saturated, "woe is me" world of more popular Visual Kei. If you can look beyond the sometimes bumpy surface, you'll find 4 of the most thoroughly adorable, clever, and original young men in the Japanese music scene. Not only does Cascade embrace a special brand of off-the-wall originality... they offer a special kind of belonging to people who feel they don't belong anywhere else. -tsurara 1-1-00 |
Written by Tsurara. Please do not reproduce without permission.