Hysteric Blue look like 100,000,000 yen and sound like at least half that.

Which is to say they are a poppy-punk-ska kind of band, more cute than anything else, that come up with catchy songs - almost all in Japanese, with some English punctuation.

Tama in particular looks great and sounds quite chirpy, even sings well enough, and Naoki and Takuya do an excellent job backing her up. Actually, it's the other way around (although it doesn't look that way promotionally since Tama's so cute...) and altogether they're a pretty tight trio.

[Baby Blue], their first album, is probably the poppiest of them all, with tons of energy and catchiness. [Wallaby] is more accomplished yet largely more of the same, and their latest collection, [bleu-bleu-bleu] takes more of an atmospheric turn - different, yet equally rewarding after a few listens.

Their Hey Hey Hey sets are always fun and so I assume they're good live. In the end it doesn't matter, because they sound quite swell on expensively imported CDs. Start with the first album, stay for the rest.