Not everything on a list of loud Japanese bands is metal. Good Grief plays pop-punk, and has a three-word description for its own version: Sad Pop-Punk.
The Band
Good Grief is a five-piece from Tokyo. The members are Yasu on vocals, Sota and Keisuke on guitar, Matt on bass and Ryuto on drums.
The band formed in 2016. Its early years were unsettled. Members came and went, and the band stopped for a while. It restarted in 2021, and the history that matters begins there.
The Phrase
“Sad Pop-Punk” is a useful label, because it tells you which half of the genre to expect. Pop-punk has always had two moods: the sunny one, and the one about feeling terrible. Good Grief plays the second. The band’s own description is an aggressive beat joined to a graceful melody.
The Records
The restart was marked by the EP THE INVISIBLE SURVIVORS, released on 31 March 2021.
The first album, SAD STATION, followed in October 2023. One of its songs, “MAKE OR BREAK,” has a guest from the hardcore band Azami.
A follow-up record carries the title SAD STATION 2ND. Naming your second record as volume two of the first is a way of saying the mood has not lifted.
The Crossover
That Azami feature is worth noticing. Pop-punk and hardcore are neighbours in Japan, and share venues, bills and guest vocalists. A melodic band inviting a hardcore singer onto its song is ordinary in this scene.
Good Grief has also been picked out by SATANIC, the organisation behind one of Japan’s big punk and loud-rock festivals, for its series on bands to watch.
Why It Matters
Good Grief works in an idiom that listeners abroad already know, and has named its mood so clearly that nobody needs a translation.
Start with SAD STATION.
