There’s a certain comedy to walking past a seafront zip line on a grey Brighton afternoon and ducking into Daltons to find a Japanese rap-metal duo and their backing band, all in matching baggy jerseys, playing like it’s the year 2000. EMNW, a contraction of the pair’s names Emma and Menu, pronounced “em-new”, played their first UK festival set on day one of The Great Escape, appearing as part of Kerrang! Presents The Download Stage at Daltons.
EMNW are not the obvious TGE booking. The festival made its name on indie darlings and eccentric curiosities, and the city-shuffling crowd tend to graze rather than commit. Emma trained in classical piano and musical theatre before stints in girl group CIRGO GRINCO and jazz-pop unit Tiers-Lieu; Okinawa-born Menu came up through local idol activity and Sony’s PLUSONICA programme. Two backgrounds you would not obviously file under rap-metal, and yet Daltons filled out within minutes of doors.
The Y2K revival has been bubbling for a while, and the resurgence of nu-metal has dragged rap metal along with it, but where most current acts try to subvert the cheese, EMNW plunge into the fondue. Emma and Menu pair pop timing and idol-grade crowd work with genuine vocal ability, applying the sensibilities of Japan’s underground pop scene to the genre.
Entering the stage, Menu rocking the backwards red New York Yankees cap (the Limp Bizkit influence worn well and truly on the sleeve, or hat, rather), they open with ‘Good Vibes Only’, the title track of their March debut album, and immediately the band behind them justifies its existence. And what a band it is.
Ex-TOTALFAT guitarist Kuboty. Former Skindred bassist Daniel John Pugsley. Hardcore outfit PALM drummer KENTA, and Dragon Ash’s own BOTS on the decks. It was an unpredictably stacked lineup, a small summit of Japan’s loud-music history (and Dan) dressed like a bowling club on take your kids to work day. Fast, punchy drums with glorious double kicks, riffed-up guitars, scratches threaded through the set, the whole thing hitting way harder than the duo’s online presence lets on.
Emma and Menu trade bars with the back-and-forth chemistry of two performers who have finally found the right bad idea to fully commit to. Both can spit on equal footing, Emma taking the high notes, flexing her classical roots with clean long-held notes from time to time, while Menu provides the thicker, deeper tones.
Between verses, both are headbanging on the monitors, riling up the crowd, Emma giving WWE style axe kicks that almost reached the (admittedly low) ceiling, while the backing band get more and more into it as the set progresses. The whole group were having fun with it, with Emma and Menu especially looking like they are having the time of their lives up there.
At the tail end, their cover of Limp Bizkit’s ‘Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)’, which had its viral moment last summer after Fred Durst himself shared it on socials. Purists may scoff at the cover on record, but the live cut hit the mostly 30+ crowd right in their collective pent-up affection for the Y2K they lived through.
Closing with ‘Here We Go EMNW!!’, arguably the set’s most complete song, Emma and Menu give their most in-your-face bars, with the MAXIMUM THE HORMONE style mid-song genre switch-up followed by one of the best breakdowns of the set.
The EMNW project is cosplay, and that’s the joy of it. You can tell it isn’t trying to be the real, deadly-serious thing, and neither is anyone in the room, but what is cosplay if not fun? This isn’t the most po-faced nu-metal revival group out there, and it was never meant to be. Turn your brain off, get into it, and EMNW reward you for it. As a wise man once said, “if you don’t care, then we don’t care”.
Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to go and watch old WrestleManias and put on ‘Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water’.
EMNW
EMNW
Release Date: 04/03/26
Label: EMNW Records
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
