Anamanaguchi signals a new era with hyperpunk anthem ‘Yes I Guess’

Following on from their superb 2025 live-to-tape album ‘Anyway’, chiprockers-turned-punk-poppers Anamanaguchi are back with their kitchen-sink approach to music production. ‘Yeah I Guess’ has more in common with big punk anthems, as the band embraces huge guitar chugs and bold, raucous vocals, but fear not, the digital electronics are still here. Indeed, the single’s main melody started life being written on the Game Boy! That’s exactly why we love Anamanaguchi. Speaking of chip music, don’t sleep on their Scott Pilgrim EX soundtrack either!

Guitarist and vocalist Peter Berkman explains the new single:

I was inspired by Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. ‘Yeah I Guess’ is about realising you really do have control over your own life despite all the forces acting on you, and the strange weight of that freedom. In a world designed to predict programmed responses, what does it really mean to act freely? Punk music has always had a human feeling and I think we made something that’s fully punk and fully digital.

Fellow guitarist and vocalist Ary Warnaar adds:

The song started as a melody written on Game Boy, then turned into a really raw blown-out punk demo, which we then pushed through different software until it turned into what it is now. We’ve always seen the band and our technology as productive and opposing forces and with ‘Yeah I Guess’ we wanted to push them each as far as they’d go to see what came out.

The result is a headbanger that is an audio maximalist in every arena. From the loud chorus you can scream-chant along to, to the distortion and filters that parts of the song wrap their sonic form through, it’s a twisted punk highway I have thoroughly enjoyed. Often, punk music can just be a wall of sound, and that’s fine, but this track refuses to sit still. If there’s not something bleep-blooping, there’s a guitar filter or drum noise distortion to keep your ears moist with intent. The band says more new music and announcements are expected very soon. There is no word on whether their change of recording process with ‘Anyway’ will continue into the new project, but I think fans will be delighted that the high-energy approach is perfectly intact.

Anamanaguchi are currently touring the USA and Canada. For more information about tour dates, releases, and all the cool gaming-related things the band get up to, visit Anamanaguchi’s website.

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