J-Rock Explosion

It’s been about two years since the Beat Crusaders broke up so it’s about time we check in on what the band members are up to. Frontman Toru Hidaka has kept busy since the split, starting with the supergroup TV Murders featuring Vola & the Oriental Machine’s Ahito Inazawa, Kaji Hideki and Kohei Dojima. Unfortunately, TV Murders only put out one cover song for New Rote’ka tribute album.

But Hidaka had plenty more projects to take care of, including producing Going Under Ground’s new album and Masafumi Isobe from Husking Bee’s solo debut. He also joined Monobright as their new guitarist/keyboardist and is apparently a professor at Nakasu Sangyo University.

Fans of Hidaka’s side project GALLOW with former Beat Crusaders members would be happy to know that Hidaka started a new acoustic project with the boys from Fed Music. Their first single “Double Fantasy” was released as a split single in October with Sayaka Kushibiki and Cubismo Grafico under the name Our Favorite Songs with a bonus cover song from each pairing. “Double Fantasy” was itself a GALLOW demo from way back and has pretty much the same vibe as Hidaka’s other project minus the fancy synths.

Hidaka and Fed Music announced that they would release a full album entitled Replica on May 16. Their new single “The Long Good-Bye” can be heard above and you can preorder the new album at CD Japan. More samples can found at GALLOW’s myspace.