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Blotto
Singles Collection 2004-2007 |
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Tracklist |
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01 - Sugar Man
02 - Take Off
03 - Friday Night
04 - Tombo Game
05 - Pink Heart
06 - Riff Man
07 - This is Noraneko
08 - Metal Fiction
09 - Don't Beat
10 - Lemon Heart
11 - Water Front
12 - Good Taste |
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Review |
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It took me an immense amount of effort to get into Zazen Boys. I'm still not very big on their first album, and even Zazen Boys II is hit and miss. Sometimes I think it's one of the best albums ever, but there have been times where it gives me a huge headache and I shut it off in frustration. Perhaps I don't have the musical background to appreciate Mukai's mad scientist take on punk rock. With that said, I was actually looking forward to Zazen Boys III, partly because of the increase in quality from the first album to the second, and because I enjoyed Himitsu Girl's Top Secret so much.
I've never heard an album with an opening set of tracks so unaccessible and so crippling as Zazen Boys III. "Sugar Man" starts off the disc in a most unspectacular fashion, with sparse instrumentation that picks up at times only to fall into unstructured noodling. Not even Mukai's falsetto can save this one. The following songs are more structured and conventional, but it's like they're stuck on the ground. Tracks like "Take Off" fail to do what their title suggests, replacing Zazen Boys' pulsing, manic-depressive rhythms with a steady groove that trudges along at a painfully restrained pace. Things don't get any better until after the fifth track, "Pink Heart," a song that I believe to be one minute and fifty-four seconds of Mukai and his band trying to be annoying.
"Riff Man" brings back the crazy-yet-catchy guitars and backs them up with an incredible rhythm section, proving yet again that new drummer Atsushi is formidable enough to fill the huge shoes left by former drummer Inazawa. The hooks lie in Hinata's bass, and the song injects some desperation that the album lacked up until now. "This is Noraneko" features some excellent guitar interplay and the usual creative rhythm section that we've come to expect from Zazen Boys. It hooks you from the very beginning, with a great instrumental hook that presents some unconventional-yet-fulfilling sounds that only Mukai could come up with.
Unfortunately, the sharp rise in quality is a fleeting one, and after these two decent tracks, Zazen Boys III plummets back to the ground. "Metal Fiction" is "Himitsu Girl's Top Secret" without the hooks, "Lemon Heart" is some more vapid instrumental jamming similar to "Pink Heart," and "Water Front" seems like a continuation to "Friday Night," a song that made me fall asleep like a bear in hibernation. "Don't Beat" is marginally interesting, with some fun guitar sounds, but it gets repetitive surprisingly quick.
I'm sure there are people who find all of this fascinating and who will devour this album as another product of Mukai's crazy music laboratory. Zazen Boys III isn't a terrible album, but I highly doubt that I will go back to listen to it. I expected the third installment of Zazen Boys to continue where Zazen Boys II left off. After listening to Himitsu Girl's Top Secret, this expectation only grew. It's a shame that this disc couldn't live up to it.
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