Live Review: Melt Banana

Melt Banana (JAP)

11/03/05
AB Club, Brussels (B)

Kikikiki Kikikiki Kikikikikiiiiiiiiiii !!!!!!

Even though I was nearly hypnotised for fifteen minutes by the racket that support act, a mysterious two man army, created, I couldn't remember that much of their (too) lengthy set afterwards: noisy, rather tuneless songs, driven by mostly metal-oriented riffs, awkward rhythms, soft/loud-dynamics and an occasional scream. Quite impressive on a sonic level - more overwhelming than Death from Above 1979, for instance - but regrettably also lacking humour or something else that would have prevented me from thinking "Lighten up, guys!" The Manowar t-shirt and "Back in Black"-reference earned them some kudos, though.

Next: Melt Banana, Japan's finest export product since designer futons. Well, almost. Melt Banana is the ideal band for people always claiming there are no guarantees, no certainties in life anymore. Go to a concert by this Japanese quartet, and you know exactly what you're in for. The downside is of course that you'll never get anything you didn't see coming (like emotion, mandolin solos or slow songs), but I doubt that anyone visiting their shows cares about that. For over a decade now (which is amusing, since the members still look like they're about 18), Melt Banana have been producing some of the funniest, speediest and original punk on the market. The basics of their art aren't anything special - ultra-fast hardcore with the occasional nod to bands like Bad Brains and The Dead Kennedys - but the execution is often mindblowing. The rhythm section is thunderous and precise, but the appeal of the band is mainly dependent on guitarist Agata and vocalist/shrieker Yasuko. Whereas listening to their studio albums will have you wonder how many overdubs and trickery Agata has used, the realization that he's also capable of making the same freaky noises in a live context is almost baffling. With his surgical mask on (a recurring gimmick for years), the guy bashes chords out of his guitar and slings deranged solos into the audience, but more essential is the limitless array of effects he creates with pedals, fingering and slides. It's the sound of an arcade of 80's computer games going totally berserk. Like, entirely.

Despite all this, the main attraction of the band remains the presence of Yasuko, who combines an enigmatic tranquillity (really!) and beauty with one of the most idiosyncratic styles you'll ever hear. It's not that she screams her lungs out, but her staccato little girl-shrieks will have you wonder who pressed the Fast Forward/Helium-button. If a Yorkshire Terrier could scream during a bad acid trip, I imagine it would sound similarly deranged. It's hardly singing and despite the fact that many of her lyrics are in English, they're simply unintelligible, her hiccupping, ultra-rhythmic style fits their angular, start/stop-styled hysteria perfectly. Of course the variation is nada and the tempo totally out of control, yet seeing Melt Banana is, to use their own words, so much fun. To avoid monotony (two dozen songs of 60-90 seconds tend to become a blur), the band inserted a section halfway the set in which they played "eleven short songs." Each song was introduced David Byrne-style ("The next song is called…") and then the band performed blasts ranging from 5 to 15 seconds with a surgical precision. Naked City without the squealing saxophone. Very sick, very funny. The band did two encores (the first one containing their deconstruction of "Surfin' U.S.A.," probably the only non-typical song) and it was all over under an hour. As suggested above, their shows will not meet your expectations if you expect soul-bearing lyrics, a range of emotions or a diversity of tempos and moods, but it remains quite an experience and a "must see" for anyone with a soft spot for edgy rock & roll, especially when dissected by four outlaws from Tokyo, Japan.