Review || Kero Kero Bonito – TOTEP E.P

Once upon a time Kero Kero Bonito released some of the most uber-kawaii beats you could find on the UK scene. We’re fairly certain they will again, but to open 2018 the band have released a stealthy E.P of dark-core, lo-fi electro-garage that is surprisingly cheering.

Certainly, catching a notification that this particular band have released new music is the often the difference between a good day and a bad one and when the VHS-inspired video for Only Acting appeared one morning it was the most  perfect gift the internet could give besides digital coffee croissants served by pink crocodiles. The moment the guitars kick in there is a moment of genuine wow as you process this complete change of musical mood from what could be the world’s most cheery trio in music.

The wonderful gloom fills the rest of the E.P, with opener The One True Path opening the way beautifully, the layered electronics soothing us into a darker mood. You Know How It Is places a layer of radio fuzz to fore and makes a curiously enticing study in sound experimentation and the beautiful Cinema loses out the set in not too gloomy despair.

If nothing else (and it’s not in any way a slight on the thought provoking music on TOTEP) it seems Kero Kero Bonito are shaking off the chains of neon pink kawaii and entering darker, in many ways more accessible territory than ever before and in a world where change is often feared it’s pleasing to see them do something genuinely different.