No skips, all hits.

Heyo, what’s up guys? Long time no see! And welcome to a brand new year of Japanese music album reviews here at the one and only J-Music Exchange/Rate! This is our first installment after the holidays, and I think I can safely speak for both of us when I say that Al and I are really excited to be back at it again. To those of you returning from previous years, we’ll once again be in your guys’ care 😌

That said, if you’re joining us for the very first time and you’re not entirely sure how this whole thing works—

The Exchange/Rate is a tandem album review series conducted every month by yours truly alongside my good friend and fellow Japanese music fan Al (from Omunibasu). Each month we decide on a specific theme with which our reviews would revolve around. We then pick out albums from our respective libraries which we think best coincides with that theme. We will then give the album we chose to the other person and vice versa (exchange), after which we then listen to and subsequently review the album we were given (rate). This project has not only allowed us to explore music beyond our libraries, but it provides an opportunity for us to see our favorite albums from a different point of view. It is our hope that this series is able to do the same for you and that you either find a new artist to try out and/or we offer you a fresh take on one of *your* favorite albums 

Al and I take turns deciding the theme each month, and for the very first Exchange/Rate album review of the year, it was Al’s turn to pick. The theme this time around is albums with no skips; or in other words, Japanese music albums that we believe have virtually zero tracks worth skipping. Front to back, all hitters.

For his pick, Al chose SHISHAMO 6 by three-piece girls rock icons SHISHAMO as the focus of our discussion today. I, in turn, handed over Ai no Ubugoe, Ai no Nakigoe by singer-songwriter Leina. You can check out what Al thought of it over at the Omunibasu Substack!

Alright, let’s run it!

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SHISHAMO are a three-piece girls rock band comprised of Miyazaki Asako (vocals/guitar), Matsuoka Aya (bass), and Yoshikawa Misaki (drums). The original trio, which included then-bassist Matsumoto Aya, formed in 2010 while the members were still high school students. They released their first single, Shukudai ga Owaranai, in October 2012. Following Matsumoto’s departure in 2014, SHISHAMO continued on in their current lineup, going on to release multiple albums and remain active for well over a decade. In September 2025, the band announced that they will be disbanding in June 2026.

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(＊Spotify link to the full album)

CDJapan Affiliate Link(s):
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＜T ｒａｃｋｌｉｓｔ＞

０１・天使みたい/tenshi mitai
０２・ひっちゃかめっちゃか/hicchaka mecchaka
０３・君の大事にしてるもの/kimi no daiji ni shiteru mono
０４・二酸化炭素/nisankatanso
０５・忘れてやるもんか/wasureteyarumonka
０６・ハネノバシ/hanenobashi
０７・今だけは(demo.朝子宅にて)/ima dake wa (demo. asako taku nite)
０８・真夜中、リビング、電気を消して。/mayonaka, living (room), denki o keshite
０９・フェイバリットボーイ/favorite boy
１０・キスをちょうだい/kiss o choudai
１１・またね/mata ne
１２・君の隣にいたいから/kimi no tonari ni itai kara
１３・曇り夜空は雨の予報/kumori yozora ha ame no youhou

Ａｌ：When SHISHAMO 6 released back in early 2020, I remember not particularly thinking too much about it. I don’t know if it just didn’t fully resonate with me at first, or the fact that it came out around a time when there were more pressing matters to worry about… whatever the reason was, it almost became an afterthought for me and my existing fandom of the band. It wasn’t until a year or two later when it finally clicked; going through the album again and giving it a deserved second chance made me fall in love with everything about it, and even ended up becoming one of my all-time favorite albums from the Kanagawa-rooted trio. Heck, I even admitted on Twitter that it felt eons better than their previous full-length release (of which I still believe, to this day). However, suggesting S6 to Leap this month made me realize that I’ve never taken a moment to really think about why I find it to be a standout release. It’s probably odd to hear something like that, especially with an album I’ve held in such high regard for a good while now, but I’ve always relied on its overall vibes and easy-going tone as the ‘loose’ reasons why I love this release of theirs.

Of course, those can be enough of a rationale to love an album but looking deeper into it, I think this honestly might be my personal favorite instance of SHISHAMO’s constant evolution as a band. In my opinion, I could sense that they had quite a bit of free reign and less of a need to meet high expectations while putting this album together. I especially enjoyed hearing them try out brand new things that we hadn’t seen prior such as the reggae-like sound in “Wasureteyarumonka”; the rapping verses within “Hicchakamecchaka”; or “Imadakewa” showing off a more ‘unembellished’ side to the group, giving you the fuzzy feeling that you’re actually in the room where Asako recorded this demo. And while a lot of the songs on here can feel very reminiscent of their earlier works—which is a completely fair criticism—I think they do a good job finding a balance between sticking with what they’re known for and further injecting that growth/maturity shown in their later stuff. For me, I equate it to the ‘Goldilocks effect’, where it just has the right amounts of that nostalgia factor and freshness to it, resulting in a record that’s pretty easy to go through and one of the best SHISHAMO has ever put out. And considering that 2026 will mark the end of SHISHAMO’s illustrious run, I thought it was only right to start off the year with an album like this. It also features “Nisankantanso”, one of my absolute favorites from their entire discography, so that alone is a huge plus (lol).

＜Ｓｏｎｇｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ＞

０１・天使みたい/tenshi mitai
We’re going to start off this review seemingly the only way I know how to start off album reviews (lol) just based on how I’ve historically done so here on the J-Music Exchange/Rate, and that’s by talking about the album’s opening track; which, for SHISHAMO’s SHISHAMO 6 here would be none other than Tenshi mitai here. This is just standard operating for me at this point given that this is just how I consume albums on the regular (that is, by listening to them from the first track to the last), though given that this month’s theme is “albums with no skips”, it actually does behoove me not to skip ahead all the more. I will say though that in as much as I would normally just do this a matter of course, under more normal circumstances I still would talk about this opener in particular, simply because of how much it uncharacteristically… doesn’t sound like one at all.

Usually when we talk about album openers it’s in the context of them being tracks that set the tone for the album, whether it’s because of the kind of energy that they bring that then carries over to the rest of the tracks, or them serving as an introduction to the kind of sounds that we’ll mostly be hearing for the remainder of the album. Tenshi mitai, curiously, does neither of those things, or at least, not in the way we would normally think (more on this in a bit). Rather than being an energetic number, the song plays much more the type you’d hear be used as an interstitial sort of track you’d typically find more towards the middle portions of an album instead. To those of you reading this who are familiar with SHISHAMO’s previous works, the song to me almost feels like an extension of or a sequel of sorts to one of my personal favorites of theirs Nettaiya. Suffice for it to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this too.

０３・君の大事にしてるもの/kimi no daiji ni shiteru mono
Now, while it’s true that the songs following Tenshi mitai don’t necessarily follow suit in a strictly stylistic or thematic sense, there is still a clear sense of cohesion running through the album. That cohesion, to me, comes from a couple of key elements that feel closely intertwined: how different many of the songs on SHISHAMO 6 sound compared to what you might typically expect from SHISHAMO, and the sense of maturation that naturally comes through as a result of that shift. In that respect, I actually think “uncharacteristic” is a pretty apt and succinct way to sum up my experience with the album as a whole. That said, I should also acknowledge that I’m hardly the foremost authority on SHISHAMO’s discography, so I may not be fully qualified to draw a hard line on what is or isn’t uncharacteristic for them.

What I do have, though, is the context of having listened to at least two of their previous albums through the Exchange/Rate (one of which was even a best-of) and that perspective is what I’m ultimately drawing from here. One of my long-standing critiques of SHISHAMO’s sound (and I suppose you could call it a criticism) is how overwhelmingly vocal-forward their songs tend to be, with Miyazaki Asako’s voice often feeling like an acquired taste. What struck me as particularly surprising on this album, though, was that I never once got that feeling. In fact, Kimi no daiji ni shiteru mono ends up being the most guitar-forward I’ve ever heard the band sound. The sequence of riffs starting around 2:12 has easily become my favorite instrumental moments in any SHISHAMO song… ever, which is honestly something I never thought I’d find myself saying about them.

０５・忘れてやるもんか/wasureteyarumonka
If I had to single out the most uncharacteristic song on SHISHAMO 6, though, it would be Wasureteyarumonka without question. That’s partly because it’s such an unexpected style for SHISHAMO to tackle, but also because, more broadly speaking, it feels like a pretty unique track within the context of Japanese music as a whole. I mean, where else are you hearing reggae rock with multiple rhythm and tempo shifts of all things? (XD) There’s an inherent hilarity to the arrangement because of just how quirky and off-the-wall it is, something even Japanese listeners have openly acknowledged. What I found especially fascinating, though, was digging into fan reactions to the song (I was genuinely curious) and seeing that, beyond the amusement at how it sounds, the overwhelming majority of listeners talked about how deeply they resonated with the lyrics.

In hindsight, maybe the song’s arrangement was intentionally designed to offset the weight of its words. Because on a first listen, you wouldn’t immediately peg SHISHAMO’s Wasureteyarumonka as being a rather graphic breakup song. Not graphic in the sense of depicting anything explicit, but in how raw and emotionally exposed it feels, like each line was pulled straight out of someone’s private confession diary. SHISHAMO have always written about love and heartbreak, so that much isn’t new, but it’s often been framed through the lens of youthful, high school–era romance. While this song could still technically fall under that umbrella, the emotional perspective here feels noticeably different. There’s a sense of looking back, a breakup song that’s equal parts sad and spiteful, yet never once portrays its narrator as wallowing in self-pity. That mature attitude clearly resonated with listeners, many of whom shared how the song helped them get through their own heartbreaks, something I honestly found pretty cool, and oddly fitting given how unexpectedly heavy the song really is.

０９・フェイバリットボーイ/favorite boy
I wanted to spotlight Favorite boy as my last song of interest before getting into my overall thoughts on the album, mainly to show that despite how SHISHAMO can feel like a completely different band on SHISHAMO 6 (at least by my own admittedly pedestrian assessment), there are still moments scattered throughout the record, even in its latter half, that feel unmistakably textbook SHISHAMO. This track, in particular, evokes the clearest elements of what I’d consider their trademark sound: that peppy, energetic, upbeat pop rock that longtime fans know and love. What makes it stand out here, though, is that it feels subtly refined. There are small adjustments and improvements that directly address some of the criticisms I’ve had toward this style of theirs in the past that I mentioned earlier; changes I’d largely attribute to the band’s maturation.

If I had to put a finger on the change I’m hearing when comparing Favorite boy to some of SHISHAMO’s much older material, it’s that the song feels noticeably less… high-strung. And by that, I mean that while it still sits firmly on the cheerier, upbeat side of things, as you’d expect from a “classic” SHISHAMO track, it doesn’t push toward the same audible peaks that even I, as a listener, have occasionally shied away from in the past. Miyazaki Asako’s vocal highs feel more restrained here, mellowed out to great effect by Matsuoka Aya’s fantastic bass lines and, more broadly, by the band’s increased trust in their instrumentation to carry the song forward. Coupled with SHISHAMO’s already strong sense of rhythm and their knack for writing sticky, memorable hooks, the result is a refinement of a sound that I honestly thought was already as polished as it could be. Being proven wrong, not just by this track, but by the album as a whole, was a very welcome surprise in that regard.

＜Ｗｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｏｆ　ＳＨＩＳＨＡＭＯ　６＞

As I mentioned earlier, I find myself in a somewhat unique position, at least within the context of the J-Music Exchange/Rate, having already reviewed two SHISHAMO albums prior to this one. Of course, two albums in the vast ocean that is their discography doesn’t amount to that much in the grand scheme of things, but I was hoping to use whatever familiarity I had with their music as a reasonable frame of reference when approaching SHISHAMO 6. In that sense, I think I did manage to do so, just not in the way I originally expected when Al first pitched this album to me. While revisiting some of my older writing in preparation for this review, I also ended up stumbling across an offhand remark I’d made about the band in a completely unrelated piece (my review of Time Lapse by Kinoko Teikoku). Looking back on it now, I couldn’t help but feel that what I’d said there might actually shed some light on why this album turned out the way it did. That is, as I’ve gone on about throughout this review; uncharacteristic with a hint of maturity.

One of my biggest takeaways from revisiting SHISHAMO 3 and SHISHAMO BEST alongside SHISHAMO 6 is just how markedly different so much of the latter sounds by comparison. On paper, that doesn’t look like much of an observation, but the important thing to remember, and the main conclusion I’d drawn from SHISHAMO BEST in particular, is that SHISHAMO are a painfully consistent band. They’ve honed and polished their sound to a point that, frankly, already felt like a natural terminus. Why reinvent the wheel, as they say. And yet, SHISHAMO 6 isn’t quite the SHISHAMO people had come to expect. Which naturally begs the question: why? Why, after years of refining what could be considered their trademark sound, did the band choose to switch things up, and not just once or twice, on this release? Some fans have speculated that the band may have started leveraging their standing in the scene to bring in professional arrangers or music engineers. Others have suggested it might’ve simply been a mental switch flipping at the right time. While all of that could very well be true, I’d like to put forward another possibility.

In revisiting my Time Lapse review, I noticed that I’d briefly mentioned how SHISHAMO had, for the most part, put out releases in consecutive years, save for the occasional gap. At the time, it felt like a throwaway observation, but it randomly got me thinking about the year SHISHAMO 6 came out. That year was 2020; and suddenly, something clicked. I distinctly remember 2019 being one of those gap years for the band, with SHISHAMO BEST taking the place of what would have been a major numbered release. And that got me thinking: maybe that was it. After a little over a year without the pressure of putting out a new full-length, SHISHAMO returned sounding revitalized, and even having picked up a few new tricks during their time away. Maybe that break gave them the space they needed to sort things out, whether personally, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise, and just take a breather. Whatever the exact reason, I can’t help but feel that SHISHAMO 6 is, in many ways, the byproduct of that gap year, and honestly, it feels like the band was better for it. Whether or not SHISHAMO really were in dire need of time off is, of course, beyond you or me, but I find it hard to imagine that it didn’t help.

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４.７５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ５

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９.５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ １０

As a reminder, this month’s theme is “albums with no skips” and honestly, I don’t think there’s a clearer indicator of that than the fact that I can’t actually pin down a single favorite track here. Even just among the songs I spotlighted for this review, I genuinely struggle to put one over the other, whether it’s the lovely guitar work on Kimi no daiji ni shiteru mono or the trippy tempo shifts on Wasureteyarumonka. And that’s before even getting to the tracks I didn’t go over, like Mayonaka, living (room), denki o keshite, and Matane, all of which I absolutely adore for leaning further into that guitar-forward alt-rock sound that feels so refreshingly different coming from SHISHAMO. I don’t know exactly where SHISHAMO 6 lands in most people’s personal rankings. I know SHISHAMO 3 is widely celebrated, and SHISHAMO 5 remains the band’s strongest performer on the charts. But much like Al mentioned in his own review of the latter, I find myself seriously considering SHISHAMO 6 as my favorite of theirs as well. Just an incredible release from top to bottom

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What did you guys think of SHISHAMO 6 by SHISHAMO? Drop a comment down below and let us know! And while you’re at it, tell us which Japanese albums you think truly have “no skips”, we’d love to hear your picks!

Before I let you guys go, don’t forget to check out Al’s review of Ai no Ubugoe, Ai no Nakigoe by Leina over at the Omunibasu Substack if you haven’t already.

Happy listening!