OK, plugging in my iPod now to drown out the friggin jingle bells playing in the background. It's barely November, I'm in Singapore ... so who invited Bing Crosby and a troop of reindeer godammit?? Spinning thru albums at random I crank up the volume on Eleven Fire Crackers, and instantly remember why this was a 2 second buy decision back at some music store in Shinjuku. I picked it up while working in Tokyo a few years back. I was going crazy over the local bands, and this album by ELLEGARDEN was kind of lost in all the great music at the time.

I think I just listened to it about 3 times today. This is wild, energetic J-Rock at its best, a little pop and heavy on the grunge. I guess what sets them apart from other bands in the genre - like Uplift Spice, another of my favourites - is that many songs are in English. Vocalist 細美武士 Takeshi Hosomi's accent is undefinable and intriguing. Could be Orange Country one moment, pure cockney the next. A little like Hyde in English.

Having just rediscovered ELLEGARDEN, it's sad to now discover I am just a month late - they officially suspend their activities indefinitely in September 2008 and go onto other things.

So no chance to see them live anymore (at least as ELLEGARDEN), only go back and checkout their other albums. I can't imagine anything better than Eleven Fire Crackers. But maybe I have some treasures to discover yet...