Full-throttle opener Tonight, Tonight (unrelated to the similarly-titled Smashing Pumpkins classic) was selected as the theme song for X Games Chiba 2022 – the first time the extreme sports tournament has been held in the land of the rising sun. The heart-swelling More Than Words (unrelated to the similarly-titled Extreme cheese-fest) is a pulsating ballad that deftly juxtaposes Japanese and English language, and was the main theme to big screen medical mystery Radiation House: The Movie. Meanwhile, synth-streaked rave-rap-rock highlight All You Need features in mobile video game A.I.M. $ -All You Need Is Money, while chest-thumping centrepiece Blaze blares over the opening titles of mech-tastic TV anime Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Special Edition.
Ultimately, listeners’ appetite for this album – as, in fairness, for most of MAN WITH A MISSION’s exuberantly OTT offerings – can probably be judged pretty well by their threshold for the ripe melodrama and manic energy of Japan’s pulpiest pop-cultural output. Right up to the final breakneck segue from swaggering dance-rock anthem Dark Crow into the soft-pressed keys and delicate whistles of folky closer Chisakimonotachi, it’s a record that rides the line between the ridiculous and the sublime. Check your cynicism at the door, though, and you’re in for an absurdly good time.
Verdict: 3/5
For fans of: Fall Out Boy, ONE OK ROCK, Linkin Park
Break And Cross The Walls II is released May 25 via Sony