tracklisting: 1) star 2) free soul 3)fine day 4)sound dive 5)da da da 6)baby blues 7) noise pollution 8)love song
ah, japan. you've bought me so many joys in life: godzilla, anime and all girl alternative culture bands. in fact japan is also in love with these things. what? you want names?! um, i don't know. how about... SHONEN KNIFE, ORESKA BAND, YELLOW MANCHINEGUN, Flagitious Idiosyncrasy In The Dilapidation and the beautifully horrific cancophony known as GALLHAMMER just to name a few. (and that's just punk and metal!)
anywho, here we have RED BACTERIA VACUUM (japan also likes long names). a band i discovered, i can only assume, as the rest of their new american fanbase discoverd them, opening for A PERFECT CIRCLE. and quite the dichotomy these two bands made. on a sidenote, i really hope they tour america again. they were great live. lots of energy and tons of crowd interaction, as you can see below with the sing along sign girl
there sound is hard to pindown. maybe...if Courtney Love of HOLE and The DISTILLERS-era Brody Dalle got really fucked up on saki and acid while riot grrrl'ing through japan and than gave birth to this monster of a band? yeah, close enough. hell, "fine day" bares a very close resemblance to THE DISTILLERS' "young girl" during it's first half. the songs are a mesh of old school punk, grunge and garage rock weaving in and out of themselves. All three members (and some guest singers) trade-off in the interesting vocal menagerie that takes place. the verses tend to be screamed, moaned or hollered and than they reign in the insanity for quite pretty melodic harmonies during the choruses. and all in broken engrish! but as odd (or painful to some) as it sounds, it works in the end.
production quality is pretty low. the bass gets lost in the mix. the vocals tend to overpower everything, especially when you have 3 or 4 japanese women screaming at the same time. honestly, though a clean mix wouldnt work for this shit. it's meant to be dirty and aggressive as a karate kick to the nuts. i wont judge the lyrics because english isn't their first language but i gotta admit it's fun to atempt singing along to. and the cover art? fucking creepy trash can demons. nuff said! the only real downside is it was $15 for 8 songs and a weird hidden track. weak sauce, ladies! though i suppose you do have to eat while in our country.
this definately isn't for everyone. if you like your rock gritty and lo-fi, like punk but realize that japan is one of the few countries still churning out true punk or whether you just like screaming, weird, cute japanese women than this album is definately for you. ENSO WA TANOSI
favorite track: sound dive
<-free soul/sound dive ( sound dive starts at 2:20)
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