Saturday, August 8, 2009

Review: MUCC - Antique

I came across this sometime in the past but I never bothered to listen to it because I'm a superficial bitch and I only like listening to music with pretty covers. If you think I'm being polemic I kid you not; this album cover terrified me as much as the Goosebumps book with that damned creepy dummy on the front. I look at the cover for Antique and that's all I think of and then I just glaze over it for Horizont with the tree or Gokusai with the hand. Something in me though wanted to give this mini a listen and see if what's inside is as horrifying as what's on the outside.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsR1ZGG0GkjIkr0r5XIjjakfwfRgag_mRcGbw0YfM_KwpUd78Ts1oycTd40ctVck-0_08epUHh_PAl5u9Mfy13CZZiSEOKsSOw3U00-bXvn0wnByeo3BEG5FOwyjJ54FNdtIa9i-fMeKE/s320/Cover+art.jpg
01. ---------
02. Yakeato
03. Shigatsu no Rengesou
04. Orugooru
05. Kokonoka
06. Aka

I'm not too sure about the lengths of these tracks but after this one it shouldn't matter. For this one it doesn't matter either way because I couldn't give two shits about this intro. It's a bunch of static that leads into Yakeato. What's worse is that they recycled this track for Tsuuzetsu. My god I have never heard of re-recording an opening and then sticking it on ANOTHER album, much less having that opening be STATIC! Was MUCC too strapped for creativity to come up with something less imaginative than ---------? For fucking crying out loud they didn't NAME this track, so I'll name it for them - unimaginative piece of shit.

Fuck, at least Akai Oto on the first copy of the mini was more imaginative than this. They actually had to do some fucking work, instead of just turning their television on channel six and then recording that for 20 seconds. Since the tracklist for the first edition differs, Akai Oto was supposed to be an "opening" for Aka, which came second. So what did they do? Take the first few seconds of the song, lower the volume, distort the pitch a tad, and then shove it right in front of some fucking static! And then to make it worse it doesn't even segue smoothly! Both of these track are pieces of garbage that just show that a band makes more money by making some shitty sound effects and calling it an "intro". Why be creative when you can be lame because you make the same amount of money per track ANYWAY? Lazy fucktards.

Yakeato is the "new" track that they marketed for this single (and that's quite deceptive since there's actually two here but w/e). I actually like the entire haunted vibe echoing off Tatsurou's moans. It fits with the creepy cover. What I don't like is how roughly the song switches course in the middle and goes from a haunting atmosphere to a sprinting piece. I'm not being pulled into the song the same way from that point on and that transition should have been done better. Drums feel all off and the guitars feel like they're jamming just to keep it moving. Another thing is that this song relies a lot on stereo techniques, as I often sense it moving from one ear to another and it is not needed. That bastardry continues right up to the end, where there's some loud noise in one ear that's supposed to disturb me greatly. Such an ending would have been great if Yakeato had taken an approach similar to KAErazaru Kioku and kept the creepy feeling all the way to the end but it's wasted on a track that switches pace badly halfway in. It's not that bad but I'm just stuck in the thoughts that it could have been truly orgasmic.

Since I am in a negative mood today, I shall refer to this song as Shigatsu no Rengesou. Unlike Yakeato, I get nothing from this song. Shigatsu no Rengesou is a flat-out boring song, and with a runtime approaching the closer edge of five minutes it bores the crap out of me. Miya's occasional guitar plucks lighten the mood and Yukke's bass isn't deep so much as it is warm but no one does anything interesting up until the solo. Miya's solo portion is pretty good, and the rhythm portions going on underneath the wailing guitar is the best part of the song. Shigatsu no Rengesou is a standard Angura-Kei rocker, which means it's boring. Standard is vomit-inspiring boring. Give me something fresh.

Orugooru is too fucking long and the structure of the song is very simple, which leads to it getting very repetitive before the song ends. This was meant to be played live as Yukke and Miya play the same lines over and over again. By the fifth minute into this song I'm wondering why it's still going. Orugooru also abuses the presence of twin stereos and Tatsurou sings more often in different ears than he needs to. Miya's guitar also likes to switch ears often and it's not needed. MUCC is relying on these audio tricks to make up for the lack of meat in these songs and all it does is make the songs cheesier and disorienting.

Parts of Kokonoka sound very similar to the bluesy rocker Gerbera, especially around: everywhere. Tell me 1:47-1:52 doesn't sound like the solo from that song. I'm not imagining things. Well, back to the actual song here, I find Kokonoka bloated but it does enough switching up to keep the pace from stagnating like spoiled milk. There's some bass-only sections, random female voices speaking in the background, some light guitar plucking and some blues-backed section. All these changing parts make it an interesting song to hear but not one to listen to. Tatsurou's voice sucks majorly and it cracks a lot. Around the 3:30 mark he just starts singing and he doesn't stop until the guitars slow down for a little bit and then he comes in again. He is the main reason why this song drags so much; he is just not interesting to listen to this far back. He's sucked in every track so far but he just excels at sucking here.

Aka sprints at the speed of a circumcision and the pace is really interesting in that "bang my head against the wall" sort of way. This was supposed to be re-recorded from the demo tape they handed out, which means all they did was add that retarded beginning that irritates my eardrums. Despite those two setbacks, it's the best song here but what did you expect out of an A-side? It's verses have that rare quality to be very simple but very effective at sticking in your memory. Tatsurou's vocals are rough and they suck compared to the re-recording, so I suggest you take a look at this on the WORST OF MUCC collection they released. Unlike that album, it was wise of MUCC to put this track last. It's long, drawn-out nature does not suit well being the introduction to an album.

Then again, neither did the first two tracks I mentioned. Ruddy pieces of shit they are...

I'm going to tell you right now: this MUCC is not the Korn-inspired thrash fest that they were on Houmura Uta. You like Houmura Uta? Stick with that time period, trust me. This is weird, ethnic Japanese rock at it's core and not everyone's going to get it. I get it, but I'm in that large group that doesn't like it. The droning nature of Antique suits the faded cover well and by the end of Aka I feel that I didn't get anything out of listening to this album. Half these songs were too damn long and the other half of these songs were too damn suckish, which leads me to the final section of this bitch-fest.

Recommended:

Aka on WORST OF MUCC

Score: 40%

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