 Finally.
Zuno Keisatsu, aka Brain Police, had a bitch of a time getting to this
point. Their first two albums were banned: the first album was driven
so far underground that ZK leader Panta had to distribute it
personally, and even then it didn't happen until literally the last day
of the band's existence. The second squeaked out, was promptly banned,
then "covertly" distributed (more on those two here.)
So when Japanese rock fans walked into their local store to pick up
"3," many must have wondered what had happened to the other two.
The frustration shows. The previous releases certainly had no
shortage of fire, but on "3," there's an even darker undercurrent in
Panta's vocals, the sound of a man that started off pissed, but has now
channeled his rage into a final condemnation. "ふざけるんじゃねえよ"
(appropriately, it translates to something akin to "Don't Fuck With
Me") isn't a song
so much as an accusation, a rant so full of venom that it makes the
MC5's Rob Tyner sound positively congenial.
"嵐が待っている" ("Waiting For The Storm") starts off with muddy, ominous bass
and Toshi's foreboding bongos, opening up into a deliciously primitive
guitar riff. Panta sounds so desperate in the chorus that he's barely
human, giving off a war cry that has less to do with singing and more
to do with letting out blind rage. Powerful stuff.
But "3" isn't just about aggression, and "時々吠えることがある" ("Sometimes, I
Swear") is a classic 70s rock power ballad, from before the form
devolved into sentimental mush. Panta doesn't sound any less driven,
however, giving the song the edge that keeps it on the right side of
the line. "少年は南へ" ("Southern Boy") sounds almost happy, with vocals
that are as passionate as the other, clearly more angry, material.
...and all this without understanding the words. Zuno Keisatsu (as well
as Panta's subsequent solo career) is all about storytelling, being
specific with The Word, so it's therefore impossible to get everything
out of the band without understanding Japanese. This fact overshadows a
more important fact in that, specifics or no, it's still very easy to
discern the emotion behind the wall of incomprehension. The feeling
transcends the language, and when it doesn't, it's because the music's
so disorienting. There's the utterly bizarre "前衛劇団 モータープール," ("The
Avant-Garde Theater's Motor Pool,") a track stitched together from what
appear to be parts of songs that bore no relationship to each other,
shifting from one to the next with absolutely no regard to flow
whatsoever. It devolves into barking at one point, then devolves
further into Tasmanian Devil style verbal panic, only occasionally
returning to the lunkheaded verses. The influence of Frank Zappa hasn't
always been apparent in the band's work (although they took their name
from his "Who Are The Brain Police," and still use it as their live
theme music to this day.) But with "Motor Pool," the Zappa goofiness is
twisted into a level of psychosis that prefigures Austin, Texas'
Butthole Surfers by nearly a decade.
All the more startling, then, to hear it followed by the deadly
straightforward "歴史から飛びだせ" ("Jump From History,") a quick rock 'n' roll
raveup that's all handclaps and sing along. Then there's the chilling
"無知な奴らが舞い踊る" ("Dance a Jig For The Ignorant,") a track every bit as
gloomy as the ironic title suggests. Panta has always been adamant
about avoiding stylistic monotony, swinging from one idiom to the next,
putting straight up ballads next to enraged diatribes without apology
or (sometimes) even transition, and "3" was the first time it truly
came together to form a package as musically rich and coherent as the
sentiments behind it. "3" was a high watermark for the band, and
actually became somewhat of an albatross, a moment of vindication that
weighed heavily on subsequent releases, eventually causing the band to
split to years later, in 1974. People living in Japan wishing to get
into the band will most likely be referred to "3" as the starting
point, and while the linguistic wall can be initially daunting, the
purely musical form of the record is more than enough to justify the
time. The language barrier means that the West may never get everything
the band tried to convey, but as "3" shows, what's left is still more
than enough.
---
Available at Amazon Japan
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