卵 (Tamago) album art
betcover!!, the project founded by Tokyo-based singer-songwriter Jiro Yanase, have only further distinguished themselves as time goes on. An appetite for genre fusion has always existed since the 2019 release of their debut album 中学生 (in English, Love Forever), though 2021’s 時間 (Jikan) was a reintroduction. The underlying breeziness of their J-rock melodies were joined by a more restless sensibility, one in which fierce jazz-rock sat next to their lounge-ready ballads. It was as if an intense itch had revealed itself between betcover!!’s shoulder blades, and the band was frantically trying every tool in their impressive kit to scratch it away.
The band leave everything on the floor with “超人” (“Choujin,” or “Superhuman”), a standout from their new album 卵 (Tamago). Everything betcover!! does so well is spread across the song’s 9 minutes and 14 seconds: the suite opens with frantic, pounded piano post-punk and abruptly drops into a strummed, acoustic lullaby. This abrupt pendulum swing in vibe doesn’t reflect the song as a whole, which is more content to build to its peaks and valleys more gradually, like an explosion playing forwards and backwards in slow motion. The lyrics echo with despondency and beat-indebted vigor; as pretty as they are, there’s no one excerpt that best captures the song other than “Stop it,” the only words Yanase sings for several minutes. As the music builds to a baroque conclusion, Yanese makes these words sound like less of a plea than a meditation, each utterance revealing a new angle. Previously unseen visions are something betcover!! does well, and on “超人” it extends down to the syllables.