PC Music-affiliated trio Kero Kero Bonito have found the sweet spot between sounding out of time and ahead of it, all at once. Their no-fat nuggets have the hyper-slickness of kawaii J-pop, while harking back to an era (the 90s, obv) when high-concept chart hits were as ubiquitous as boy bands’ curtains (recalling, especially, one-hit-wonders Len). They describe their own music as “bilingual schoolyard dancehall” – vocalist Sarah Midori Perry sings and raps in Japanese and English – but their songs are best when they stop being so satirically cutesy and zip somewhere else. Fish Bowl is a gorgeous smoosh of saccharine shoegaze that’s too short; Big City goes for 80s synth-pop, as if coasting along a neon-lit superhighway, with its cruisy beat and sleazy bassline. If that sounds like it might make your blood-sugar levels sky-rocket, skip to Lipslap, a boingy, fluoro pop-house track, like flubber being let off in a branch of Claire’s accessories. Expect a Katy Perry collab to follow swiftly.
