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The biggest surprise among records I bought last year was an old (1996, which is ancient for rock music) recording by a Japanese industrial-terrorist-Dada-rock band called Melt-Banana. Melt-Banana is composed of two guitarists, both heavily amped, a thrasher-style drummer, and a squeaky-voiced vocalist who in range and vocal quality resemble a long play record being scraped crosswise on an amplified record turntable. The songs on the CD are short -four of them, including one of my favorites, "His Name Is Mickey (At Last She Got Him...)", clock in at a composite length of 68 seconds. There are lyrics to the songs -what else would the vocalist do without lyrics?--but they're pretty much beside the point, which is energy, irreverence and youth. Listening to Melt-Banana when you're distracted is a venture in masochism, but when you're in the mood and you want to crank up the stereo or iPod and make waves, Melt-Banana is perfect.
Tokyo's Melt Banana is the noisy, in-your-face yin to the Boredoms' hippie-experimental yang--a blitzkrieg onslaught of punked-out drums, slap bass, wildly gnarled guitar squeals and loud, high pitched vocals that sound as though they're being screamed by a seven-year-old with a serious attitude problem. Beginning with the jackhammer assault of "Plot in a Pot" and ripping through 22 songs in about as many minutes, "Scratch or Stitch" consistently cranks the volume to 11 and the speed to 200, and doesn't let the insanity subside for a precious second. That's okay, though, because YaSuKo O., Agata, Rika and Sudoh are skilled musicians and their playing is impressively tight, suggesting that each unhinged blast of noise is 100% intentional even as it seems improvised upon first passes. Often compared to Lightning Bolt's similarly unrelenting take on noise-rock that sounds like an aluminum bat to the forehead, Melt Banana is actually more like a machete, slashing the poor eardrums of anyone who dares to come in too close.
Melt Banana is a great band. They are very original. They are fast noise and shouting lyrics. They are much like The Locust, but Melt Banana just seem more substantial. These songs come at a fast pace. Twenty-two songs under thirty minutes. Who knows what it is about? The titles confuse me. I have seen them live and they are intense and loud. They are one of the best Japanese bands.
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