Labels: Anti-New Waves
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Man, this is some good punking. 4 songs apiece from a pair of Japanese bands out on Anti-New Waves records. Blotto open things up with their assault, the first track really stamping their enjoyable yet simple sound all over your brain. “Fuck All the Situations, But…” is a romp through drunken shouty punk vocals and a whole bunch of melodic guitars kind of not too far removed from early Dillinger 4, back when they just wrote straight forward punk songs before they did that first amazing LP (probably by accident). There are vague hints at ska on the intro and later in the song, but I don’t care because it’s only a hint. The bass is quite up front and they have multiple vocalists at times. They continue their boozy punking over the next 3 tracks, doing various Dillinger impressions and sounding awesome with it. SUPER FUN! “Just Another Punk Rock Song For A Man Who Is Not So Young” is rampant and bursts at the seams with melodic energy, it’s a great song about being into punk rock and not being a teenager. Their lyrics namecheck Fifteen and Crimpshine if that helps.
World Today then start off their songs, the bassy intro to “Recognition” sounds like the one from Milkwede’s awesome “More Than Me” but it takes off in a different direction soon after, with the multiple vocalists sounding equally as drunk as Blotto’s whilst the band play their sloppy punk rock. Aces. They sing in English but the lyrics are a little difficult to work out – they do sing about typical punk subjects like shitty jobs and war. I preferred Blotto overall, but they are pretty decent too. “Invation” in particular is really cool, fast and just good.
Good split, Japan brings the punk – 8 songs in 20 minutes! It seems so hard to find good, new melodic punk these days, but Japan has a whole tonne of it as I have been learning the past couple of days. I am going to review more Japanese punk over the coming months because my buddy Simon is living out there and I am going to buy some records via him. Smart.