BACK-ON to release their third album “Good Job!!” on May 30th 2012!

As with Hello World, BACK-ON have decided to release two editions of their third album “Good Job!!” – a CD-only version and the other as a CD+DVD combo. This is the first album release since Icchan left the band in November 2011 and features 9 new, previously unreleased, tracks!

Good Job!! (CD)	Good Job!! (CD + DVD)

With thanks to CDJapan for the images and details: the CD-only edition will include 12 tracks, and the CD+DVD edition will apparently have two additional videos for “Ice cream” and “Connectus and selfish”.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Ice cream
2. Highway Dancer
3. Connectus
4. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
5. come on & Let’s go feat. Emyli, kalis from OVER DOSE (Taiwan)
6. HOME
7. Word play
8. WE CAN’T STOP
9. フタリダイアリー
10. IT’S NOT OVER
11. Selfish
12. Mr Yesterday
13. [DVD] Ice cream **
14. [DVD] Connectus and selfish **

As we browse through the tracklist, we find that the band have included “Connectus and selfish” as two separate songs – BACK-ON originally combined the two due to restrictions by their record company for the same-title single to only have ‘one new track – and have collaborated with Kalis from the indie Taiwanese rock band OVERDOSE for “come on & Let’s go”.

Some of you may recall that OVERDOSE were the opening act (or warm-up act) for BACK-ON during their 2009 live tour in Taiwan – KALIS is credited as one of the band’s main vocals and rappers and you can listen to more of the band’s music on their official Youtube channel.

Emyli – who also collaborated with them on the same song – is a Japanese pop singer who has also worked with m-flo. She recently posted a photo of herself and TEEDA on her Facebook wall and her official website can be found here.

BACK-ON‘s third track “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme” hints at ABBA (I hope it will be a fast song, personally) and フタリダイアリー or ‘Two person diary’ seems to be a very contemplative title.

All-in-all, Good Job!! is looking to be a very intriguing release – especially given the collaborations – and I hope you are as excited as we are about it! We’ll be updating the Discography section as we find out more, but feel free to come and join our forum discussion thread as well!

Official BACK-ON photos from SUMMER SONIC 2009

A very short post today as it’s all about the photos: when BACK-ON performed this evening (7th August 2009)  on the Garden Stage of SUMMER SONIC 2009 in Osaka!

These photos are from the official live report and I really wish there were more! Loved TEEDA‘s hoodie top by the way:

And this is a map of the entire venue – BACK-ON was right in the heart of everything!

Icchan and Kenji03 certainly look as though they were enjoying themselves (see Icchan‘s full blog post):

Finally, to give you an idea of what the atmosphere is like at this massive music festival, take a look at the official Attractions & Audience photos and videos from Osaka – we’ve included a few below:

Photos from BACK-ON’s live performance at the “Tales of Festival 2009”!

Fans of the Tales of series will probably already have seen these photos, but for everyone else, BACK-ON was the musical guest of honour (along with the female J-pop group GIRL NEXT DOOR and misono) at the annual Tales of Festival of 2009!

The festival is a celebration of the Tales of series, as well as an event for announcing forthcoming new games. This year’s festival was held on 14th June 2009 and BACK-ON were invited to perform flyaway and Re:Start, songs that most fans will know as the OP and ED (respectively) theme songs from Tales of the World : Radiant Mythology 2.

According to various reports, they wow’d the audience with their thrilling renditions of both songs:  Gpara said that ‘they single handedly roused the crowd’ during their performance.

BACK-ON later invited Ito Kanae (伊藤かな恵) – Kanonno Earhart‘s seiyuu – who featured in the flyaway [Tales of] remix – to join them onstage; she was too nervous to actually sing in front of the crowd.

BACK-ON with Ito Kanae courtesy of Gpara

The photos are courtesy of Gpara.com,  Dengeki.com and Famitsu.com, and you can view them in full by visiting the Tales of Festival 2009 section of the Gallery.

Listen to clips from BACK-ON’s new album YES!!! on their official Myspace!

It’s been awhile since BACK-ON updated their official Myspace, but with 1 day left till the release of their very first full album YES!!!, they have revamped their profile with new banners, and more importantly, provided preview clips of 4 [LA mix] versions of their songs from their brand new album!

Click on the screenshot of the player below to visit their official Myspace and listen to the songs yourself! If you don’t have access to Myspace, keep on reading for a special treat that we have for you :)

Is BACK-ON’s first full album called “Yes!!!”?

Rumours that BACK-ON might be releasing their first full album this year have been floating around since earlier this year, when the various online record companies posted an ‘Untitled’ album by BACK-ON due out on the penultimate day of July. However, 30th July came and went, and news from the band during the summer were really just day-to-day thoughts from their official blog.

Then came September, and the revelation that the other half of the mysterious new group BAReeeeeeeeeeN were in fact BACK-ON, and since then, the band has experienced a huge surge of popularity. So much so, that at their first public performance after the release of 足跡 (Ashiato) at Shibuya Boxx on October 9th, the venue was packed out! We found out about this from the official ‘report’ on Back-on.com, which was accompanied by the launch of their official photo gallery, featuring more than a dozen photos from the gig!

There are more photos available at the link above, but perhaps more importantly… we had the very first hint in the last line of the report that the full album really is forthcoming, this time on the new rumoured date of November 12th 2008!

So what do we know about this potential new album? If the Japan-base online CD retail companies like Amazon.jp, CDJapan and HMV.jp are anything to go by, this is the jacket cover of the brand new album:

We also find out that the new album will probably be called Yes!!!, and that it should be priced at ¥ 2,600, which is around $27 USD or £17 GBP. Apparently there will be a total of 10 tracks, including 足跡 (Ashiato) aka. Footprints and color from the BAReeeeeeeeeeN debut single, which really shouldn’t be a surprise, given that the cover design really does scream (to me) GReeeeN!!! What do you think? Let us know on the Forums, if not in the comments below!

The supposed 8 other tracks on the album are currently unknown, but it seems BACK-ON will definitely be including all the title tracks from their singles so far, which presumably means songs such as (in reverse chronological order) –

• Sands of time
• flower
• Butterfly
• BLAZE LINE
• NEW WORLD
• Chain

and many more of their crowd favourites. One site even mentioned ヒカリサスホウ (Hikari Sasuhou), which was a huge hit with the fans at their October 9th Sonic Concorde gig, enough to make BACK-ON perform it twice!

Seeing as it’s one of my most favourite songs, I think I can understand why ;) And as if the photo extravaganza above wasn’t enough, look at the promotional photo we found on Amazon.jp!

Kenji03 is wearing glasses!!! That’s enough to make any fan-girl go KYAAAAAA! (I’ve borrowed this from someone, sorry!) It’s a pity the photo isn’t larger, but if you do want a good close up, I can certainly recommend watching a new video uploaded by gangangan03, where BACK-ON (in their new outfits!) introduce 足跡 (Ashiato), but unfortunately the broadcasting giants appear to have waved their copyright flag, and not only have they removed the video, but gangangan03‘s Youtube account has mysteriously been suspended! It’s a HUGE HUGE blow for BACK-ON fans imho, and I really hope the account will be re-instated soon as it is a gold mine of media of the band. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

I would like to drop in a tantalizing hint “タネウマ★DJ ICHIKAWA from Volta Master remix” at this point, but let’s leave it for the next post and move back to the main topic:

Will BACK-ON‘s first full album be called Yes!!!

Will it really be released on November 12th 2008?

That really remains to be seen, but please keep checking back here for more news!

Video interview with Back-on by MTV Taiwan, now subtitled!

This news comes a little late (almost a year!) after Back-on‘s visit to Taiwan for their international debut in Asia for Formoz Festival 2007. The original video was uploaded by gangangan03, and as it was in mandarin (and Japanese!) it was only accessible to those familiar with the language.

With thanks to gangangan03 for his kind permission, we have now translated the interview clip and added subtitles to the original, which is now available on Youtube as a video response!

This is our first attempt at translating an interview clip, so if you do spot any errors or anything else that we can change or improve, please let us know! :) You can watch the subtitled version by clicking here or after the cut.

Interview questions included:

What were your thoughts about the whole event (Formoz Festival)?
Was there anything that stood out in particular?
Have you done anything interesting whilst you’ve been in Taiwan?
Do you have any weird habits?

Apparently icchan eats a lot (especially whilst on the phone) and Kenji03 likes sticking out his tongue!

Hope you enjoy watching the interview, and please do let us know what you think! :)

“Sands of time” out today!

After the unbearably long wait (their last single release was in September 2007!) Back-on‘s brand new single Sands of time is finally out today! :)

Alas I haven’t yet heard any of the new songs on the tracklisting (apart from the title track Sands of time) but according to the initial feedback by Meji (who received her CD the day before the release date!) Back-on have apparently out-done themselves with the new songs!

Meji mentions in one of her posts that the songs were:

“Not really more focused on the rock side. message for kidz is very catchy, and the fifty/50 one, I would say that song would be their best one, b/c on the lyrics and listening to the song itself the same time; it comes out like a story, I’m guessing it would be life in the Adachi District where they grew up.“

And in fact, Icchan wrote a little bit more about message for kidz and fifty/50 in his latest blog entry (they’re really looking forward to feedback by the way!) where he says that:

“fifty/50 will be a nice surprise to those who listen to Back-on‘s songs, as it is very different and will be the first time the band have experimented with this style. Teeda sings solo (I think he might be might even be the only singer?) for this quite ‘hip-hop’ song, and the lyrics really demonstrate the conflict that Teeda feels within his heart.”

Icchan also elaborates on message for kidz (parts of which I didn’t understand very well either) where he seems to say:

“The song isn’t just for the stereotypical children or ‘kids’, as everyone is or has been a kid at one point. message for kidz is dedicated to cheering-on anyone who has worked hard to overcome their hurdles and move forward, step-by-step, towards the future. Hopefully, kids who are kids, or people who were kids will listen to this song and feel energised!”

I’m very much hoping I haven’t misinterpreted Icchan‘s words (any corrections, please please do let me know!) too much, but hopefully it will give everyone a rough idea of the background of these two new songs. ^^

And before I forget: a big thanks to Meji for the first review of the single! :) I can’t wait to get my hands on my copy, but in the meantime, I will keep scouring the internet for any previews!

Watch the ‘Sands of Time’ PV in full on Youtube!

If you’ve been camping out on the BOO Forums for the past few days, you’ll definitely have heard of the breaking news (from Sesshy as well :D) of the release of a clip of the Sands of Time pv on Back-on‘s Myspace!

It featured 0:58 minutes of Back-on goodness (splashing water, an hour-glass and slow-motion have never seemed so magical!) but ended so abruptly that the rabid dedicated fans were left wanting more. Our prayers were clearly heard by someone, and who else but the one-and-only gangangan03!

He has uploaded the full Sands of Time PV on to Youtube (thank you!!) and you can watch all 3:21 minutes of it at the link below! (or below the ‘cut’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhkmXIRx7o

UPDATE 05/01/09 – We have just updated the link to the fansubbed HQ version of the PV as sadly gangangan03‘s video is no longer available. The new video is courtesy of Vanalovas and is subbed by Order of Zeronos.

If you fancy just looking at the screenshots instead, we’ve taken just over 100 stills from the mp4 version of the file. They are now all hosted on our brand new Flickr account! We’ve included some of the pictures below for your convenience, but it’s best to experience the entire ‘PV’ by viewing them all in one go (at the size ‘small’ for optimal quality)

What do you think of the PV? I personally think it’s one of the best the band have done so far, and it’s very arty in some parts! :) I do love everyone’s outfits (although I wish Icchan had a more ‘complete’ look!) and can’t wait to see some official photos!

UPDATE: With thanks to gangangan03, it turns out that the director of this spectacular PV is none other than Hideaki Sunaga, who also directed the PV for Chain, and has worked with artists such as Dragon Ash, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koda Kumi!

Only 10 more days until the big day of the single release! ^^

New single “Sands of Time” cover design released!

The news was first announced a few days ago on Back-on’s official blog as part of a blog entry by the band’s drummer, Icchan, and you can see it for yourself below!

The design was actually quite different to what we had expected on the discussion thread on the forums, where members kindly (and enthusiastically) threw in their suggestions :) What do you think of it? The general consensus so far that people really like it!

Back-on then followed up this ‘sneak-peak’ by officially announcing the release of their new single on their official website, where they confirmed the May 21st 2008 release date. They also posted that the single (in line with their other single releases to date) will have 3 tracks, but so far, the only known title is the title track Sands of Time.

In addition, the band have also changed their Myspace profile picture for the occasion, which features Teeda wearing a necktie! :) You can see the image itself after the ‘cut’ (click on Read more…) but it is unfortunately a little small, so we can’t see much detail as yet, which is a pity! Hopefully they’ll release some larger pictures soon!

p/s: The news release regarding the new cover design and Myspace picture (see below the cut) has come courtesy of Sesshy via the Sands of Time + Keitai Sousakan 7 discussion thread! Thank you! :D

p/s2: Don’t forget you can download the TV Size version mp3-rip of Sands of Time from BOO!

Videos of Back-on performing live at clubasia and GAME in Shibuya, Japan!

Although we haven’t heard much about Back-on‘s musical activity until these two days (we’re in the middle of drafting the news post about their new song ‘Sands of Time‘ which features as the ending theme for the upcoming 51-episode Jdrama ケータイ捜査官7 [Keitai Sousakan 7, Cellphone Investigation 7] !) they have been extremely busy (as usual) performing gigs in Japan!

Usually this sort of news would, for obvious reasons, pass right by international fans (like myself) and be filed away as ‘general news’, but with a huge thanks to mau37 and also acq128 (in particular, who has kindly given us permission to post his video and sent us some photos that will be uploaded to the Gallery!) we’ve now been offered a unique audio-visual glimpse into their live Japanese gig performances via Youtube!