Maximum the Hormone
Bu-ikikaesu

Release Date: 2007 | Tracklist

I think the Japanese are rad because I admire their modern social culture as a mindboggling blend of extreme politeness and absolute bat-sh*t campy craziness that somehow collide in a way that impossibly works. It’s hard to fashion a populace that values the buttoned-up traditions of structured moral codes and death-before-dishonor could produce such pants-sh*ttingly bizarre pop culture. There’s something to be said about a people that can be heroically stoic in the business room and simultaneously revel in rock-f*ck goofiness once they let their hair down and the result is fascinating. Maximum the Hormone are probably really big rebels in Japan as its strikingly obvious 100% of their time is devoted to establishing a new level of eccentricity while throwing out a gigantic middle finger to any cross-cultural sense of normality. In other words, Maximum the Hormone make really f*cking strange, really Goddamn chaotic music that absolutely should not work but is impossible to dislike. It might be easy to label them as a “Japanese System of a Down” because if Serj Tankian ever heard “Whats Up People?” he would immediately throw his lamb-cabob across the room and fly into a homicidal rage all the way to his lawyers office, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the mind-smashing genre collisions that Maximum the Hormone brandish like a crazed Hibachi chef loaded up on rot-gut Sake.

Almost anyone familiar with the concept of J-Pop would not conceive it ever, f*cking never effectively colliding with a blend of thrash, nu metal, and hardcore. The first time you hear a crushing metal riff/hardcore testosterone fest give way to a saccharine-drenched almost karaoke-esque female j-pop chorus you might decide it’s either the most knarly or intensely awful thing you’ve ever heard. “Buiikikaesu” spends most of its time trying to decide whether to be ultra-badass or deliciously campy, but the undeniable result is it ends up being some of the catchiest sh*t ever laid to wax. I am aghast as to what in Christ’s name “Koi No Megalover” is about, but it has become one of my personal anthems because I feel about 475% more awesome just by listening to it. “Chu Chu Lovely Muni Muni Mura Mura Purin Purin Boron Nururu Rero Rero” is one of the most immediately fetching songs ever written, even if it is probably about screaming manically about horrendously bad cartoons while eating a sea urchin or some sh*t like that. It would be almost pointless to describe any more songs, the short story is they have awesome metal structures and an impossibly melodic, probably sophomoric chorus comes flying out of nowhere and makes you want to scream “san” after every damn word you say. This album makes me want to be Japanese, and is a requirement for anyone who does not have the immediate misfortune of walking around with a gargantuan stick up their ass.

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4 excellent

Rank: #0 for 2007