Chocolat is a Japanese hearthrob who has put out 3 large selling records in Japan.

She has a twin sister who records in a band whose name I can't recall. Together they could pose a threat to anyone with the memory of Cherie and Marie Currie, the project formed by the vocalist of The Runaways and her sister after Cherie left the band - major cute alert!

But Chocolat's music? She has a very commercial sound, quite like a Japanese version of the NYC band Ivy. In fact, Chocolat collaborated with Andy Chase from Ivy on four of the songs on this CD, and photos on the back and inside of the sleeve are similar to those on Ivy's 1994 'Realistic' CD.! If you like Ivy you will like this Chocolat CD.

On three songs she collaborates with Hirohisa Horie, of Neil & Iraiza (his project with Cubismo Grafico) and Dots & Borders (his project with Hideki Kaji). Additionally, she worked with noted Japanese programmer Tomoki Kanda on five songs. Each are highly practiced artists with sophisticated ears for good melody.

In such strong company she should be the queen of pop! My favorite songs are "Roller Girl" (one of the Andy Chase songs) and "Pink", whose words and music were written by Joe Nakamura (who I know nothing about except that he wrote a small piece on the Roswell incident).

This CD cost a bundle and is definitely not for everyone (very clean sound = commercial), but as I said earlier, if you like Ivy you WILL like this disc.