Behind the Attitude of B.O.L.T: A Mini Guide to the Pop Punk Bands Featured in the Idol Group's New Album

We highlight the idol group's great new album but also use the songs to look deeper into the pop-punk bands who wrote the music

This feature is part of This Side of Japan issue #41. You can return to the main newsletter here.

B.O.L.T. isn’t the first group to discover how potent pop punk can be as fuel to drive an idol song, but they are one of the best current acts in the scene channeling the best qualities of the rock subgenre. If their debut full-length, last year’s POP, was the four piece testing the waters of their then-new sound, they detach the training wheels to sprint full speed ahead in their latest LP, Attitude. The riffs strike huge, the hooks and choruses just as massive and direct, while the drums whip up a relentless momentum. It’s a fitting vehicle for naive, wide-eyed youth music that wears its heart proudly on its sleeve—a description apt to define both pop punk and traditional idol songs.

The authenticity of B.O.L.T’s pop punk checks out from the credits of their albums with the group hitting up several musicians from actual pop-punk bands. And the liner notes of Attitude also provide a solid entry point for some awesome pop-punk bands Japan has to offer. Some have already been running the circuit for more than a decade while others are young guns with a few promising records under their belt. So I figured let’s knock the two birds with one stone by highlighting the idol group’s new album but also using the tracks on the record as a mini guide to some of the pop-punk bands who worked on the music.

SpecialThanks (Track #1, “Smile Flower”)

“Movement,” from SUNCTUARY (2020)

Attitude kicks off with its standout song, “Smile Flower,” that doubles as the idol group’s mission statement: “Anytime / Smile no matter what / Let’s get the world to blossom through our smiles,” B.O.L.T. sing a classic idol-song chorus as a high-octane riff blasts out of a mellow acoustic jangle. The idols’ words of optimism but also the limitlessness of youth is supplied by Misaki, whose band SpecialThanks practically leads by example when it comes to perseverance as well as faith in their own work. Trucking along since 2005, the Aichi band has shown no signs of dying down in last year’s SUNCTUARY album. Like “Smile Flower” for Attitude, “Movement” delivers the band’s thesis for SUNCTUARY: “Let’s share joy / The song of love rings in the heart,” Misaki sings in the chorus. “We become one / and together we start a movement.” SpecialThanks and B.O.L.T. strive to accomplish the same goal—it’s no wonder they make a great pair.

TOTALFAT (Track #5, “Yummy!”; Track #6, “Don’t Blink”)

“My Game,” from MILESTONE (2020)

TOTALFAT’s songs about love resonate more as odes to brotherhood and camaraderie, and so the three piece seem to reach into a different perspective when writing music for B.O.L.T. “Yummy!” from Attitude in particular employs a few lyrical gestures more specific to idols than a punk band. “If these memories that I tasted for the first time with you won’t let me go… I’ll just eat them myself,” B.O.L.T sing with a fishing wink; “My world began to spin for the first time with you, and it won’t stop… Because I love you,” the idols close out the single with a winsome confession. But TOTALFAT’s Shun knows what he’s doing with these lyrics, adapting the band’s passions and bet-it-all attitude into more innocent yet equally wholesome topics.

When TOTALFAT does away with cute metaphors and gets straight to the point, B.O.L.T. are more than welcome to meet the band halfway. “Don’t Blink” immediately kicks into high gear with a guitar scrawling and “let’s go!” ad lib cuing a galloping beat. TOTALFAT’s Jose can’t help but include a few idol-like phrases: “Be under my spell / don’t blink,” the idol sings in the titular chorus. “I just want to keep looking at you.” But elsewhere, the single stands broad enough to encompass the thoughts of a girl yearning to bump into her crush as well as a band dying to reunite with their fans—a dual perspective that idol groups can exclusively assume both at once.

Lucie,Too (Track #7, “JUST NOD”)

“Yura Yura,” from Chime EP (2019)

B.O.L.T turn out to be a freeing platform for Chisa to explore a mood less indulged in the music of her band Lucie,Too. The Chime EP from 2019 saw the three piece dig into the highs and lows of being young and in love: they were ecstatic to embrace such a sweet feeling in one track while riding a set of huge riffs, and in another, they were let down coming to terms with their own limits.

“JUST NOD” from Attitude comes from a similarly teenage perspective, but Chisa as a lyricist exercises a frustration and anger that’s mostly restrained in Lucie,Too songs. “Don’t return a question with a question,” B.O.L.T open the track, setting the song’s fed-up tone right from the get go. But ss much as they try to put up a front, the idols can’t keep up their charade to hide their vulnerability. “JUST NOD, please just nod / that’s all I need,” they plead in the chorus. “That’s all want so I can go back to my more honest self.” Chisa locates a very specific sadness, pinpointing the selfishness but also the helplessness that comes from a fresh break-up.

SonoSheet (Track #9, “Hear You”)

“Epilogue,” from Kimi Nijimu Ao (2021)

“Hear You” sticks out as an important song for B.O.L.T in the track list of Attitude. After the idols run through a series of restless, hard-hitting jams, the four slow it down to prove they can knock out modes other than being loud and rambunctious. SonoSheet’s Yuki Watanabe pens for the idols a tender ballad about trying to learn how to better sense the emotional needs of a significant other: “I failed to notice you whispering about your pain / and the day goes on, floating by,” the idols open the song in regret as the heavy riff drags along, shot with guilt.

It’s a bummer of a song even measured against SonoSheet’s latest LP, Kimi Nijimu Ao, though the Tochigi band isn’t new to turning sorrow into trembling drama. The three-piece’s single “Epilogue” gently cruises along, only to land a deep hook when you least expect it: “I’m the only one holding on to our times together,” Watanabe howls while the band steadily keeps time as the song slightly shifts direction. The band gifts a wealth of riffs and hooks, plus a few giant vocal lines to scream it all out, though you’re still somehow left with a void you can’t quite fill.

SHANK (Track #2, “Mawarimichi”; Track #8, “Mikansei Kokyu”)

“Wake Up Call,” from WANDERSOUL (2018)

SHANK’s Hyota Matsuzaki once again ends up with a tougher assignment for B.O.L.T than the others, tasked to arrange the more emotionally complicated tracks for Attitude. Stardust Planet perhaps got him to return after he turned in the best track for the idol group’s previous album, POP, given a similar prompt. And like that past contribution, “Mikansei Kokyu” finds the idols in a rather ambivalent mentality: “My body is screaming that it’s tough to keep on living,” they sigh in the chorus, and the guitarist complements them with punk music that’s down on its luck yet still resilient.

Matsuzaki gives B.O.L.T a friendly push as well in Attitude. For “Mawarimichi,” the SHANK member backs the group with a hearty punk riff that lies closer to the music of his main band. A cloud of gloom threatens to dampen B.O.L.T’s spirits as expected from a song titled “detour.” But it’s ultimately no match for the happy-go-lucky idols or Matsuzaki’s exuberant pop punk. “Don’t give up hope! / You have the strength to not give up,” B.O.L.T harmonize. “Go, go, go, no matter what / Your answer is beyond the finish line.” The cheerful lines double as words of encouragement for a classic idol song as well as firepower for a pop-punk anthem.

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