PaleNeØ

PaleNeØ Biography

Profile

Formed 2023 / Tokyo, Japan / Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Japanese Rock

Official sources verified: PaleNeØ Official Website — PROFILE / Village Again Association (VAA) artist page (checked 2026-08-29).

Biography

PaleNeØ — read “Pareneo” — is a four-piece Japanese girls band formed in Tokyo in April 2023. The name is a coinage joining Paleo, for the ancient, to Neo, for the new; guitarist and vocalist REOTO proposed it. The band describes itself as a girls HR/HM band, and every video on its official channel opens with the same line: activity began on 28 April 2023. The line-up is HOHOMI on vocals, switching between clean singing and death vocals in an instant; AYARI on seven-string guitar; REOTO on guitar and vocals, who writes the lyrics to almost every song and composes half of them; and YONA on six-string bass. There is no permanent drummer — the seat is filled by support players.

It began with YONA wanting to put together a hard rock band of women. She looked for players whose direction matched hers through social media and playing videos on YouTube, approached them, and the four started work in April 2023. Barely two months later, in June, the first digital single PANORAMA appeared, three songs long, and a free headline show at ROCKJOINTGB in Kichijoji, Tokyo drew a crowd of over a hundred; by then the band already had something like twenty original songs ready. A second digital single, “Schizoid,” followed in October and a third, “aLiVE,” in December — and the video for “aLiVE” passed 110,000 plays within two weeks of going up.

On 16 June 2024 the band's first-anniversary headline show at Shinjuku ANTIKNOCK in Tokyo sold out, and the self-produced mini album ØCTAVE went on sale the same day, at the venue and by mail order only. All 500 copies went at once. Its obi strip asked whether the band was merely cute or the real thing. PaleNeØ then signed to the label VAA — Village Again Association — and made its formal debut on 4 December 2024 with the first full-length album SCØRE. Built on the idea of treating an album as a single sheet of music, its eleven songs swallow metal, classical writing, visual-kei colour, VOCALOID and anime-song melody whole; it reached number 9 on Oricon's weekly rock album chart and number 3 on Tower Records' all-store weekly J-INDIES chart.

From March to May 2025 the band played its first national one-man tour, Allegro Agitato, across seven cities, with Shizuoka, Osaka and Yokohama sold out; the first maxi single, Raison d'etre, went on sale at the venues from the opening night. The second album, FORTISSIMØ, arrived on 16 July 2025, closing on REOTO's four-part suite “Shisha no Sho” and carrying, on the limited edition's second disc, a 24-bit remaster of the long-sold-out ØCTAVE. It reached number 3 on the weekly rock album chart and number 5 on the weekly indie album chart. PaleNeØ Tour 2025 “FORTISSIMØ” — twelve shows in ten cities — began on 20 July; the 14 December finale at SHIBUYA TAKE OFF 7 in Tokyo sold out, and two extra dates were added for January and February 2026.

On 13 May 2026 came the second maxi single, UNISØN, built on the theme of setting out; it reached number 2 on both Oricon's weekly rock singles chart and its weekly indie singles chart. Three days later the national one-man tour named after it, PaleNeØ Tour 2026 “Voyage in UNISØN,” opened at Fuji ANIMAL NEST in Shizuoka and set out on seventeen shows across sixteen cities, ending on 22 November at Daikanyama UNIT in Tokyo. Three years in, working outward from hard rock and heavy metal, PaleNeØ keeps binding classical and sacred music to VOCALOID and anime-song melody inside one band sound — sounding the ancient and the new at once, exactly as the name says.

The Idea Behind the Name, and the Music

“PaleNeØ” joins Paleo, meaning ancient, to Neo, meaning new. The band's own English profile glosses these as Greek for ancient and brand-new. The duality is not only in the name: internally the group sorts its songs into “Paleo” songs and “Neo” songs, and the Paleo side — the classical and liturgical writing — is mostly REOTO's. Set lists are put together with an eye on the balance, so that an evening does not tip entirely into one half.

Songs come from REOTO and from two outside writers, the VOCALOID producer asanuko and a writer credited as Kukkii. The Japanese press has described the band as building “on an HR/HM axis, taking in loud rock, metalcore, melodic hardcore, anime song, J-pop, VOCALOID, visual-kei, and elements of classical and sacred music,” and as “a loud, omnidirectional band sound that has swallowed metal, rock, classical, visual-kei, VOCALOID and anime song.” The feature most often named is the twin vocal: HOHOMI's scream set against REOTO's clean lead, a shape the band used for the first time on “Yomei Ichinichi” in 2025. Latin opera, quotations from Burgmüller, Bach and Beethoven, and a song written entirely inside an Arabic scale all sit on top of a seven-string, six-string, loud foundation.

Every album is named after a musical term — ØCTAVE, SCØRE, FORTISSIMØ. The second album was to have been called “Forte,” until the band asked whether stopping at forte was enough and moved up one mark. The Ø of the band's name carries into the record titles too, so that the orthography is itself part of the design.

Member Profiles

HOHOMI (Vocals) — A singer who moves between clean tone and death vocals without warning. As a child she heard Kana Nishino and Ai Otsuka through her parents while listening to BABYMETAL and Unlucky Morpheus alongside them. In her high-school music club an adviser suggested she try screaming and taught her SiM's “KiLLiNG ME,” which she calls the song she started from. She and AYARI were in the same university music circle. She wrote the lyrics and, with YONA, the choreography for “CRAZY & NOiSY & CUTiE MAGiC!” Born 20 March; from Mishima in Shizuoka.

AYARI (Guitar) — A seven-string guitarist. She took up the seven-string because of BABYMETAL, practising sweeps and fast picking out of admiration for its backing band. She also listens to VOCALOID, anime songs, Roselia and Poppin'Party from “BanG Dream!,” Japanese rock and EDM. On “Raison d'etre” she plays slap — on guitar. Born 28 August.

REOTO (Guitar & Vocals) — Described on the band's official profile as an android. Writes the lyrics to nearly every song and composes half of them. Until partway through middle school her world was classical alone — piano, violin and trumpet, and an orchestra — and she had meant to become a classical composer. Rock arrived around high school, first through Spitz and then through copying ELLEGARDEN, which led on to punk and loud rock. She attended a Christian mission school and grew up with hymns, which is where the liturgical vocabulary of “in Gloria Dei” and the suite “Shisha no Sho” comes from. Both the band's name and the 2026 tour title “Voyage in UNISØN” are hers. Born 30 October.

YONA (Bass) — A fingerstyle six-string bassist, and the member whose wish to form a hard rock band of women started the group. Aqua Timez brought her to music; through childhood and her school years she listened almost entirely to visual-kei, and she names Royz, of the “neo visual-kei” generation, as a particular favourite. She devised the choreography for “CRAZY & NOiSY & CUTiE MAGiC!” with HOHOMI. Born 3 June; from Utsunomiya.

Discography

Beyond these there are four self-produced venue-only discs with no price and no catalogue number: a demo of “Two Step☆Screaming” in four member versions, packed into the band's 2024 lucky bag; “In the Aquarium (acoustic ver.),” handed out at HOHOMI's birthday show at Tachikawa BABEL on 18 March 2024; YONA's venue-only track “#5C1767,” handed out at her birthday show at Kichijoji Mandala on 2 June 2024; and REOTO's two-song “Reoto no Oto,” handed out at her birthday piano recital UNLOCK at the same venue on 4 November 2024. All four were given away rather than sold, and none is listed in this site's discography.

In Summary

PaleNeØ is a four-piece Japanese girls HR/HM band formed in Tokyo in April 2023. It released its first recording two months after starting, sold out a self-produced mini album within a year, made its label debut in its second year, and by its third was touring sixteen cities behind two full albums and two maxi singles. The ancient against the new, classical against loud, clean voice against death voice — folding opposites into one name and one band sound is the method, and it is where PaleNeØ stands now.