Labels: Child Is Mine
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Pfft, that pretentious title sounds like something Envy would come up with. Ok, Gauge Means Nothing are Japanese and scream a lot but I don’t know if Mogwai think they are cool. Personally I would much rather listen to this than Envy’s latest (overblown) opus, because it is utterly bonkers. Some might say it is trying too hard and a bit over the top (yes, it is definitely the latter), but I find this record incredibly fun to listen to. It has 4 songs spread across it’s rather fancy wax, and these songs are a ridiculous blend of fast and poppy punk and mental screaming. Into the mix comes keyboards and a high pitched girl yelling her lungs out, boys bellowing and all sorts. It has plenty of fast and catchy riffage to hook you in, but just when you think you have a handle on what’s going on (such as in the first song), the boy and girl start doing undeniably cute singing like they are in a pop punk band on Snuffy Smile. No relent though, it’ll all spazz back out before you’re ready, the opening track descending into breathless sobbing and a twinkly mellowed out finale with twee yet somehow sombre keyboard. They follow that with 3 more songs that are all impressively interesting and exciting. They mix up the various elements “” melodies, harsh screaming, fun singing, oddball keyboards, catchy riffing and come up with the full package. I guess it’s sort of like if Yaphet Kotto and a French emo band had drunken sex and gave birth to a child that had some kind of addiction to sugar or an extravagant attention defecit disorder. “Boku Wa Bikaiin” is particularly troubled, starting off all happy sounding with boy+girl harmonies before it goes into this bizarre section with all kinds of screaming and xylophone or glockenspiel playing. The song then alternates between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for it’s duration. Cripes. It has a super catchy pop punk part with sung vocals and screeched backups, so endearing. The ending with the piano and girl vocals and the screaming and the guitar solo is just plain whacked. I give up trying to describe it. Incredible.
None of the tracks on here disappoint. I bet they’d be an utter blast live.You presonally might not like this, but you have almost definitely not heard anything like it. I think it’s great.