Country: Japan
If you haven’t figured it out by now, Japan is killing it in the rock scene right now. From Band-Maid to After Squall, we’ve been finding some great acts from the land of the rising sun, and we have another one to add to the list: Man With a Mission. Similar to Band-Maid and BabyMetal, the group comes with a visual branding (the wolf masks) and a humorous “bio“, but there is nothing gimmicky about their music.
On their latest album Break and Cross Walls I, things blast off from the start with “yoake”, a crazy catchy and energetic synthy pop-punk jam. The track also introduces their mixing of both English and Japanese lyrics in their songs. Adding to their cred in the pop-punk world is a feature from Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump on the excellent “86 Missed Calls”.
“Merry-Go-Round” brings in symphonic flourishes to its epic rock tapestry, while “Change the World” is simply a hard-hitting anthemic banger. There’s a ton of great music to discover with this band, so start off by hearing a couple of their tracks in our World Watch Playlist!
The Indy Review 