This Song’s Okay (We Promise)
[Video]
[7.67]
Vikram Joseph: The double-speed, EDM-influenced, Japanese “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” we had all obviously been waiting for.
[7]
Ryo Miyauchi: Everyone involved in “Breaking the Road” does their absolute best in each of their established roles, but it’s bittersweet to witness such collective completeness in what would be the last Gang Parade single with this seven-person line-up. Following Gang Parade with Aya Eight Prince was a story of a band defining itself through the ongoing growth of its tight-knit relationships with one another. They were first lonely souls barely getting acquainted, and then they looked unstoppable once they saw each other eye to eye. I suppose it’s only right it ends with a farewell. Aya gets the last spot in “Breaking the Road” as she should: after this, she would return to her original group BiS to wreak havoc there. Her eventual exit informs the lyrics about moving forward, an attitude the group adopts more out of necessity. The explosive punk riff, too, offer no other direction for them to run. Yet the girls toughen up to send their cherished member out with a smile as they work out their impending separation together. GanPare’s two biggest jokers, Coco Partin Coco and Yui Ga Dokuson, turn out to be the ones who deliver the most mature, heartfelt message. And it’s Yumeno Yua, one of the long-standing members of this ever-changing group, who leaves a lyric for Aya to take as a souvenir after they’ve gone their separate ways: “Even if we change shape, we are the one/We’re always looking at the same thing.” After a year full of separation — within Gang Parade, idol culture at large or just general personal experience — it was a lyric that kept me going, too.
[10]
Alfred Soto: I write this blurb on the night Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, the mightiest of pop punk songwriters, died. The racket raised by this Japanese pop punk outfit might have impressed him. “Breaking the Road” needs no further analysis: it’s tough, gnarly, and brief.
[7]
Iain Mew: The massed sonic attack and the way that it breaks up into unexpected sharp edges is a bracing thrill. They turn it into a more conventional rousing chorus and it remains fine, but without any kind of break after that as the same sounds get hammered it all becomes a bit mushy. That lack of lasting clear direction is something the excellent video fixes, at least.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: I was good and ready to award an [8] at least until the crowd sounds started and wouldn’t stop. Who are these randos, and why are they killing my Liveonrelease/Tuuli/Kittie buzz?
[6]
Ian Mathers: This provokes the exact same kind of giddy, giggling thrill I felt when I first listened to Andrew WK and realized he was throwing in whatever he could think of (Motown-style backing vocals, Bach, keyboards) to just make everything as BIG and FAST as he could manage.
[9]
Taylor Alatorre: If you have a good idea, hold onto it as tightly as possible and don’t let go. At some point it was decided that “Breaking the Road” would be built around a grimy electronic motif and quadruple-time skate punk drumming, and Gang Parade adhere to those ideas as fervently as one can without accidentally making a gimmick song. The pummeling constancy of this rhythmic background creates an ideal launching pad for the members to launch their voices into the stratosphere at the exact moment it’s called for. They allow the chorus to sprawl out and take up all the space it deserves, not resting or deviating until it reaches its logical, inevitable conclusion.
[8]
Micha Cavaseno: Since my proper introduction to them after emerging out of the ashes of then-former and now-restored member Kamiya Saki’s POP with the possibly five times re-recorded “Plastic 2 Mercy” (a song that still breaks my heart maybe three years into listening to it), Gang Parade are possibly not only my favorite act in the WACK Stable of alt-idol maniacs, but probably my favorite Japanese musical act currently. “Breaking The Road” is the final single by their second line-up which features little of the tearjerker melodrama that infatuated me with the group at first, but culminates all the satisfaction of watching this group of misfits be so proud of themselves. While other seckond Phase GP singles such as the defiant thrash of “Gang Parade” or their “mallpunk Yü-Gung” “イミナイウタ” were eagerly caustic, “Breaking The Road” buckles with buzzsaw guitars and grating d-beat while the harmony above it all is the girls, so astonishingly bold. Most of the various WACK groups — be it BiS, EMPiRE, Billie Idle, whomever you like — have typically hid behind defiance against society in a recognition that they’ll never be the idols they’re expected to be. But “Breaking the Road” is less about the war outside the group than the unity they’ve found within. Now and forevermore, this group is a gang and a family, and to have a song that resonates with that feeling is a greater feeling of victory than they’ve ever managed to achieve.
[9]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: An exhilarating dose of pop punk that never lets up. The sheer force of the drumming makes it feel like the girls in Gang Parade are pushing up against your back, ensuring that you keep pressing on despite any circumstances. The spirited chorus transmits an unmistakable sense of uplift, but it’s the bridge — filled with gang vocals and complementary snippets of cheering, laughing, and talking — that points to why encouragement from friends is heartening: it reminds you of the kindred bonds that have been formed, and how they’ll only continue to strengthen.
[7]