Here’s the thing i love most about Japan’s reigning heavyweight champs of noise-core, Melt-Banana: most hardcore punk musicians would probably kill themselves to be able to make noise this face-meltingly original, but even a steady diet of Sparks Plus, trucker speed, and what the hell, a couple lines of blow for good measure wouldn’t get them anywhere near the altered hyper-consciousness necessary to dream up the shit Agata and co. throw down on a regular basis. Go to any live Melt-Banana show and look at the musicians’ faces in the crowd, and you’ll realize that these cats are untouchable. Give their latest release Bambi’s Dilemma a spin, and that realization will simply be reinforced.

Bambi’s Dilemma is the first proper M-B release since 2003’s Cell-Scape, which is odd in an era where indie bands are churning out records as every two years or less. But it’s well worth the wait. Since 2000’s Teeny Shiny, the band has been veering from their trademarked hardcore/noise toward pure pop music on a trajectory that would earn Einstein a posthumous Nobel in rock ‘n’ roll physics. See, Melt-Banana achieving the speed of pop is an impossibility, but as they increase catchiness and hummability, they become heavier, their velocity increases, and time ceases to function in a way humans can comprehend.

Still, the unnerving-yet-exhilerating hooks in tracks with titles like “Blank Page of the Blind” and “Cat Brain Land” are cornered by the tried-and-true M-B conventions: guitars more interested in simulating rayguns than riffage, Yasuko’s yelping, hyper vocals, and pounding rapid-fire drumming that may or may not be provided by a machine at this point (the debate is a hotly contested one amongst Melt-Banana fans; whether or not Cell-Scape’s drums were provided by a machine or by Discordance Axis‘ Dave Witte (who has drummed for them on a number of tours and, well, is basically a human blast-beat machine, so maybe both sides are right), the band’s not saying.

Perhaps the most obvious progression in the band’s sound can be found in the sudden increase in trippy psychedelia in the tracks “Type: Ecco System” and “Last Target on the Last Day.” Usually, the band reserves these effect-drenched acid flashbacks for album codas, but placing “Type” in the middle of the album forces it into the spotlight, as it breaks up the rapid-fire sequencing in truly jarring fashion.

Bambi’s Dilemma is by no means Melt-Banana’s best; for my money, that title goes to 1998’s Charlie, a must-have for any lover of all things noise. But still, these kids are producing music i dare say is more original than anything else you’ll read about here, and it still rocks pretty goddamn hard on top of it. Most musicians concerned with originality for originality’s sake tend to forget that rock music is still supposed to be, you know, rockin’ and fun. Not so with Melt-Banana. Every life show is a huge, fleshy, sweaty bruise of a party, and Bambi’s only real dilemma is figuring out where to take the party to next. 

Release Date: April 30, 2007 (yeah, so i’m a little late, sue me)

Label: A-Zap Records

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