Wedday - Kokka

Wedday belongs to the vast majority of indies visual kei bands which aren’t, have never been and will never be popular. But unlike some bands which are appealing but remain unpopular due to hardly explainable factors one can only make wild guesses about, Wedday’s case can be elucidated with ease: if nothing else, they are known for making cheap, simplistic and noisy music. Unsurprisingly, this leads some to think Wedday is some kind of a joke band. Yet if one makes the effort to dig beneath their overt cheesiness, many interesting things can be found.

The first one is that Wedday is far from being the first band in the history of visual kei to play at-first-glance bad music. Inspiration drawn from the likes of early cali≠gari or For 10 years after-era Noir Fleurir is too obvious not to be pointed out. Nonetheless, denying Wedday’s sloppiness would make one lose credibility simply because this band’s music truly is sloppy. However, there is something more to it. While in the context of modern visual kei, professionalism is too often synonymous with lack of creativity and boldness, and Wedday manages to raise their messiness - which from a historical standpoint can arguably be traced back to punk music - to the level of a subversive, rebellious asset. Therefore, to properly appreciate the five songs and one 30-second “bonus track” available on Kokka, one is required to “digest” their fairly non-standard way of putting sounds together first. Having assimilated the band's concept, one can move on to appreciate Kokka for what it is: that is, no more, no less than a good record.

The band did manage to put together a few memorable riffs while not caring about constantly conforming to the standard verse-chorus-verse pattern, so they are not as alien to the visual kei tradition as some might think. However, their deliberate sloppiness is probably too peculiar to appeal to a large audience. Still, one can only recommend that you give a listen to the unique musical statement Kokka is, though this EP is certainly not a compelling masterpiece. In fact, none of Wedday’s numerous releases likely deserves to be called “a masterpiece," but their contribution to the visual kei scene is as refreshing as genuine indies music can get.