Melt Banana: Crawdaddy June 20th

“We are Melt Banana from Tokyo, Japan!” shouts Yasuko Onuki as the band begin to furiously blast out hardcore noise-rock to the largest and sweatiest crowd I’ve seen in Crawdaddy for a long time. The place is jam-packed with obvious devotees who recklessly mosh to one of the best live bands around. That is if you like ear-shattering volume, minute long songs and surgical masks.

Before the show I was just as sceptical as you probably are right now. Melt Banana’s albums are notorious for being pretty inaccessible without investing a serious amount of commitment and my brief flirtation with them left me feeling apprehensive about what was to come. So it was with a healthy degree of fear that I listened to Party Weirdo, the excellent support, and waited for what I expected to be an hour and half of aural assault.

And that’s exactly what I got. Loud, short bursts of crazily distorted and layered guitar from Agata (who in his trademark surgical mask cut a pretty vultureific figure). Half-rap shouty vocals and killer poses from lead lady Yasuko. All accompanied by rumbling bass and frantic drumming. It amounted to a terrifying noise and peaked at the point Yasuko announced they were going to play seven short songs, which they delivered in around roughly two and a half minutes.

It was all that I expected it to be. Yet I didn’t expect that I would enjoy it so much. In fact I was completely won over by the sheer force of the music. The thing is that at points they would hit upon riffs and grooves that any regular band would turn into fantastic songs. In Melt Banana’s hands they were swiftly and deliberately deconstructed. It was captivating knowing they could easily create great songs but refused to. Instead they pushed these musical nuggets to the extremities of speed and sound. They created a constantly changing tension that combined with Agata’s theatrics, Yasuko’s slight tongue in cheek humour and the pure energy of the bass and drums all amounted to a great gig.

It may not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re ever sick to death of the same old, same old indie/electronic/folksy introspection that pervades alternative music Melt Banana provide a good antidote. A shot of highly distilled rock.