LOVEBITES – The Castaway LIVE | How Are They THIS GOOD?! First Reaction

Alright, so after watching that, I went back and looked up a few things because, once again, LOVEBITES just absolutely blew me away. First of all, let me get everybody's names straight. The two guitarists are Midori and Miyako, the bass player is Fami, and the drummer is Haruna. And man, there is just an incredible amount of talent in this band. “The Castaway” is a newer song from their 2026 album Outstanding Power, and I found out that Miyako actually composed the music, while Asami wrote the lyrics. And knowing Miyako wrote the music makes that guitar work even more impressive. But one of my favorite things about this particular performance was that Fami got a chance to step out on the bass. There's that section right before the guitar solo where she basically gets her own little bass solo, and I loved that. Because when you've got guitar players as good as Midori and Miyako, it's really easy for everything to become about the guitars. And don't get me wrong—those two are phenomenal. Every time I watch LOVEBITES, I know at some point those two are going to start trading off, harmonizing or playing one of those ridiculous dueling guitar sections. But I really enjoyed hearing Fami get her moment in this one. And then there's Haruna. There was that one little burst on the drums where she played so much, so quickly, that I honestly couldn't even tell you exactly what she did. I'd probably have to put on the studio version, put some headphones on, slow the thing down and really listen to it to figure out everything that happened there. But whatever she did— it was cool as hell. [laughs] And that's what continues to impress me about LOVEBITES. They're not just fast for the sake of being fast. There's a tremendous amount of precision involved in this music. At these tempos, everybody has to be completely locked together, and somehow they make it look almost effortless. And then you've still got Asami out front singing over all of this madness. So once again, I don't know what else to say about these ladies. They're phenomenal musicians. This was heavy, it was fast, it had that great bass moment, incredible drumming, and then Midori and Miyako doing exactly what I've started expecting them to do—which is basically blow my mind with the guitars. LOVEBITES fans, let me know what you thought of “The Castaway.” And especially those of you who are musicians—if you know exactly what Haruna was doing in that section that caught my attention, tell me down in the comments, because I'd really like to know. And if you enjoyed this reaction, please click Like, subscribe to the channel, and hit that notification bell so you'll get notified every time I upload a new reaction video. Also, share this one with your friends. Let's get some more eyes and ears on LOVEBITES, because this is a band that deserves to be heard. And if you'd like to request your own reaction video, consider sending a Super Thanks. There's a short video coming up at the very end that explains exactly how to do it. Thank you guys so much for watching, and thank you for everything you do to support the channel. We'll see you next time right here on Riffs and Reactions. Y'all take it easy. #LOVEBITES #TheCastaway #LOVEBITESReaction #LOVEBITESLive #JapaneseMetal #JapaneseRock #HeavyMetal #PowerMetal #Midori #Miyako #Fami #Haruna #Asami #GuitarSolo #MusicReaction #RiffsAndReactions