Available at Amazon Japan
| Paintbox - Trip, Trance and Travelling |
| This
job never runs out of surprises. The ocean of Japanese rock is vast
indeed, constantly hiding tiny (and often not so tiny) islands of
music, genres, and whole scenes that the intrepid record geek can
stumble upon, even after years of fairly aggressive searching. I'm not just talking about great bands or albums that one gleefully discovers. I mean, with Paintbox, I managed to not only find a new band: I also discovered a genre I didn't think could possibly exist, namely psychedelic hardcore Jpop thrash. This isn't just some intriguing arrangement of terms. Paintbox's fourth album, Trip, Trance And Travelling (sic,) is equal parts old school prog, brutalized vocals, double speed thrash, and happy, bouncy pop. Oh yeah, and when I bought it, they gave me a towel. Seriously, buying this at Disc Union will net you a custom Paintbox handtowel. Of course, poppy hardcore hasn't been anything new since 7 Seconds covered "99 Luftbalons" back in 1985. But there's extra layers of weirdness here, and opening track "Fly On The Ship～Cry Of The Sheeps" seems to be engineered for maximum WTF. Opening with a blissful, trippy psych swirl worthy of Relayer era Yes, it unselfconsciously jumps right into an aggressive, peppy rewrite/ripoff of Del Shannon's "Runaway," of all things. The first thing that sticks out are the vocals of (the presumably long suffering) Mune, who delivers his lines with an exhaustingly powerful death metal worthy growl that, paradoxically, is catchy as all get out. He sounds like Lemmy after a hard night of gargling glass shards, and somehow manages to maintain the throat shredding tone while hitting notes most vocalists couldn't hit in a normal voice. While the listener is busy trying to make sense of this dog's breakfast of what should be hideously incompatible ideas, the "Penny Lane" horns kick in, and...at that point it's time to give up. Bizarre as it sounds, Paintbox have answered the question "what would it sound like if David Gilmour joined 'Ace Of Spades' era Motörhead, then tried to cover 'Echoes' and 'Magical Mystery Tour' simultaneously while trying to start a fight with Flogging Molly?" I'm fully aware of how hideously clunky that last sentence is, but Paintbox are not an easy band to describe...in fact, we haven't even gotten to the next track, the relentlessly upbeat "Praying." This particular song is less prog, more pop, but with a healthy dose of mid 80s Damned thrown in. Paintbox might be a thoroughly weird mish-mash of styles, but having found their idiom, they stick with it, at least for the first half of this 75 minute epic. Things get shaken up with "A Field In The Moonlight," an unironically beautiful jazz prog number with loungey guest vocals, courtesy RxIxP's Mayuko Sakai.** At this point, it's not a shock when the screaming starts, but what's most impressive is how well the band makes it fit in with the laid back vibe, taking the aggression and placing it unobtrusively alongside the floatier elements of "Dark Side Of The Moon." The album's remarkably consistent, but the ringer is "Raw Ore," a goosebump inducing mid tempo rocker that, in part, comes off like a more psychedelic take on Thin Lizzy's classic, positive guitar pop. Sakai returns with support vocals this time, and the effect is breathtaking. Even the chaotic, "LA Blues" style free form end can't kill the buzz. Of the assorted times I've tried (and failed) to find online sound clips, this one is the most frustrating. I want EVERYBODY to hear this. Speaking of frustrating, there's precious little online information on Paintbox. Their label says nothing about them beyond their releases, and as of this writing there's not even a MySpace page (the Paintbox MySpace that currently exists is for a European band.) They appear to have returned from an extended hiatus: their last single was in 2001 (which was, interestingly, "Cry Of The Sheeps.") OK, that's my next assignment: check out the band at Earthdom, and talk to them to find out what the Hell's going on. Stay tuned. * = Whoops. Turns out yours truly confused/conflated RxIxP with Tokyo hardcore band DxIxE. Sadly, RxIxP isn't a band name: Sakai-san passed away in 2004. Thanks to Joe Briggs for straightening that out. |