Leo Imai is at his best on his four-piece’s instrumental hard grooves, which are amped up with a lot of slap bass and are the kind of driving songs that make you want to smash the accelerator down to the floor. Some of them, like “New Roses” of his newest album, really nail it. But he’s also carrying a lot of affectations from ‘90s punk-funk and grunge. His vocals sound like he’s going for a mix of Bono, Eddie Vedder and Anthony Kiedis, and the music takes a ton of influence from ‘90s band alternative rock, especially Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Pearl Jam, also Stone Temple Pilots and others. He sings mostly in English (he grew up in the US), but for this Fuji Rock set his stage banter was all in Japanese. Lyrics are not his strength, and his ballads can be pretty banal. But on the whole, he’s got a few great tunes and there was definitely some hard funkin’ to enjoy here.