FORTISSIMØ

FORTISSIMØ is PaleNeØ's second full-length album, released by VAA on July 16, 2025 as a standard CD (PNO-004) and a two-disc limited edition (PNO-005). The habit of naming albums after musical terms runs back through SCØRE to ØCTAVE, and this one was to have been called “Forte” — the band asked itself whether stopping at forte was enough, and moved up one mark. Eleven songs. The opener, “f -Forte-,” was written under the working title “Prize and Prison Term,” and its lyric turns that phrase into a pun on the Japanese for shortcake. The four-part suite “Shisha no Sho” that closes the record is REOTO's, words and music: part I, “Descent to Abyss,” is the band's first instrumental; part II, “Judgment,” is written entirely within an Arabic scale; and part IV, “Reincarnation,” opens on Beethoven's Pathétique and quotes the Latin from the top of “in Gloria Dei” in its chorus. “Dare” and “Gilgamesh Tousouki” appear here in album versions because both were couplings on the first digital single, PANORAMA — still in the live set, but never yet on a CD. The limited edition's second disc holds a 24-bit remaster of all seven tracks from ØCTAVE, the self-released mini album that had long since sold out. The record reached number 15 on Oricon's daily album chart (July 15, 2025), number 3 on the weekly rock album chart and number 5 on the weekly indie album chart (July 28, 2025), and number 3 on Tower Records' all-store weekly J-INDIES chart for July 14–20. Videos for “f -Forte-” (June 20) and “Crowd Surf Rider” (July 14) preceded it, and PaleNeØ Tour 2025 “FORTISSIMØ” — twelve shows in ten cities — began on July 20. The December 14 finale at SHIBUYA TAKE OFF 7 sold out quickly enough that two additional dates were added for January and February 2026.