Available at Amazon Japan
| 9mm Parabellum Bullet - Black Market Blues |
| I
had a fairly weird experience the other day: a friend and I went to the
MTV Video Music Awards Japan. Not that weird, you may say, for a music
journalist. However, I am a rock journalist, and the big stars that
evening were decidedly un-rock, at least on the native end (Green Day
opened the proceedings...there were a lot fewer guitars after that.) It
wasn't totally dominated by hip-hop and schoolgirl bait, however:
Maximum The Hormone won best rock video, and 9mm Parabellum Bullet
popped in long enough to lay waste to their surroundings with "Living
Dying Message." That was possibly the weirdest moment in an evening full of weird moments. They stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, flailing and screaming like infuriated Visigoths, pummeling Saitama Super Arena into a stunned silence that continued well after the band had left the stage, feedback screeching. The silence didn't seem to mark disapproval so much as a stunned inability to process what, exactly, had just happened. Namie Amuro this ain't. That said, there's always been a corner reserved for manic rock 'n' roll in Japanese popular culture, from The Blue Hearts to Guitar Wolf to Thee Michelle Gun Elephant. 9mm Parabellum Bullet have a bit more prog in 'em, however: comparisons could be drawn to The Mars Volta minus the literary pretension, and mixed with the sinister new wave funk retro of bands like Franz Ferdinand. They whip up a heady stew, but never lose sight of the song, traits displayed in their most recent single, "Black Market Blues." We at Jrawk aren't normally in the habit of reviewing singles, but then, "Black Market Blues" isn't really just a single. Track one is the titular tune, of course, but track two is a full live show, recorded at Hibya Yaon in April 2009, bringing the whole shebang up to the most un-single like length of 52 minutes. The "Black Market Blues," the song, is great, a buzzing, angular slab of Middle Eastern snarl and cockiness, set to a difficult to pin down beat that lies somewhere between hardcore, Oi, salsa, and disco. That's without even getting to the utterly freakish (and way too short) guitar solo from Yoshimitsu Taki. Taki's manic, slippery, acid toned guitar is a big part of the appeal. Like psych legend Michio Kurihara, he makes a virtue out of treble, and plays with an attack that borders on superhuman. He manages to stick to split second flashes of sound that would come off as shredding if he didn't also maintain a deliriously joyous sense of rhythm, turning sharp sonic needles into a butt-shaking whirlwind. It's almost exhausting to listen to, and watching him do it live while flailing about Saitama Super Arena's enormous stage like a crazed weasel was one of the best moments I've seen since I moved to Japan. Couched in the razor sharp rhythmic insanity of bassist Kazuhiko Nakamura and drummer Chihiro Kamijo, the precision and energy become truly intoxicating. Stuff like this works best live, which is why the "Black Market Blues" release is more than a single. The band can deliver the goods, and the energy is relentless: the live show's 48 minutes go by like nothing. Miraculously, vocalist Takuro Sugiwara rides atop this torrent effortlessly, taking what would normally be eye-bulgingly manic and twisting it into an unbelievably cocky show of power: "Imagine what it would be like if we were really trying," he seems to say. Imagine indeed. The band is still relatively new, having started in 2004, and while their small catalog has thus far been impressive, they haven't quite matched their epic attack with equally epic composition: traditionally structured songs are fine, but the band is clearly built for more complex terrain, terrain they haven't found yet. This stuff is impossible to keep interesting for too long without some broadening of the horizons. But until that happens, "Black Market Blues" will do just fine, serving as a strong introduction to a band that could go almost anywhere. |