I love this band (you might not)

Bucket

I've known about them for a while but only actually heard them a few days ago. Upon further research it seems they've been going since 1999 and have five or six albums, so some of you might have happened into them at some point before. Anyway... this is Maximum the Hormone.

The closest I can get to describing their sound - it's like System of a Down meets Converge meets Bowling For Soup meets some kind of Japanese bubblegum pop artist... it's weird as all hell but I think it really, really works. They have some moments of truly psychotic, head-spinning brutality, interspersed with euphoric pop melodies (yeah, get me with my big words). And all in Japanese, of course (which may explain the fantastically ridiculous band name).

So - there's four of them. There's a frontman who doesn't play an instrument, but does all the crazy screaming (and the occasional bit of rapping). The guitarist is responsible for the actual singing, as well as a little bit of the mad screaming. The drummer is the guitarist's older sister, who also sings - she does some lead vocals in the second half of the second track I linked. The bass player does backing vocals - so they all sing, they're fucking fantastic at their instruments and they write (IMO) some pretty great music.

Great band, I think! You might well disagree... I imagine it's the kind of sound you either really love or want to turn off immediately.

DulcetJones

They are impressive, I can see the reference to System of a Down.  The part where the bass player starts sprouting extra heads in the second video is pretty cool.