It used to be that a band had to be dead and buried for a good decade before popping up in interviews and liner notes as an "influence." Not anymore. Though Kurt Cobain has been dead less than 10 years, the reverberations of the Seattle sound are beginning to be felt in Tokyo's live houses, most especially with newcomers Milk Crown.
Like Nirvana and their Seattle brethren, Milk Crown pump up the volume with hooky, shrieking guitars and a driving rhythm section that invokes the call of the mosh pit. Singer Kunihiro Osuga evinces a deep appreciation for pop metal, sounding on the first cut of their new maxi single, "Ba Ba Ra," like a Japanese Axl Rose. And like Cobain, the band's lyrics evoke a world-weariness at odds with their casual, shaggy-headed, jeans-and-T-shirt pose.
Though together in Yokohama since 1996, the group has only just recently begun to leave their mark on Tokyo. Their recent graffiti campaign in Shibuya has made this a literal one. Anyone staring at their feet while strolling through Hachiko or up Dogenzaka in the last few weeks was bound to step on a Milk Crown stencil.