An Cafe is one of my personal favorite Japanese rock bands, falling under the Oshare Kei genre. I've been following them since 2006 and have seen them go through some changes from edits to their overall style and the subtraction and addition of a couple band mates- An Cafe continues to sound great and present their genre in fine form.
With millions of fans worldwide, holding multiple tours worldwide and even appearing at anime conventions, An Cafe until recently was still classified as an Indie Rock group. Odd right? Well its actually the case with a lot of mega-popular Japanese rock artists, many who became a hit way back in the days of Myspace even.
Being considered Indie doesn't take anything away from their music though, not at all- in fact in some scenes people see it as something cool that they've done so much without being signed to any major label.
On February 22nd 2017 An Cafe will be releasing their first Major album, saying goodbye to their "indie" days. The album is called "Rafu Song" (Rough Song) and features 10 tracks, with the limited edition version featuring an english rendition of Atsukunare and Smile ichiban ii onna and a bonus DVD titled LIVE CAFE 2016 "Kokoro Disco" LIVE DVD.
Its being said that the packaging art for the album regular edition reflects the feeling of gratitude and love the band has toward their supportive fans. I find this pretty awesome because there really is that connection with these guys. You can really feel that love and connection of gratitude in the air at their live events- one of the first ones overseas took place at FanimeCon 2008, and it was truly an unforgettable experience between the fans and the band who really does appreciate the support over all these years.
The album's limited edition depicts the band cooking as a possible analogy of cooking to making music.
Grab the new album regular or limited edition at CD Japan.
via JaME
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