Review Summary: another excellent spazz-jazz record from the noise rockers
What a crazy voice this chick has; she just sounds like a moody, rampaging child. On the first track she sounds like a little girl singing a lullaby or telling a story, then suddenly she's spewing ungodly conflagration into the mic like a mental case. The music is no different; jazz and punk are like Legos and lincoln logs, put together into grotesque, unstable edifices, puked into existence like some extraneous spaz attack. On one track she even sounds like she's mocking someone or something, like a true Peppermint Bratty, then she takes her vitamins and has her chocolate milk and chills out for a few minutes. It's chaotic, spontaneous and loud, but like a real little girl, its also sweet and fun deep down past the hissy fits.
On
Shinsekai, Mariko Goto and friends continue to raise hell with the unlikeliest of weapons: pianos and cutesy vocals. Comprising their punk/jazz aesthetic, these elements make Midori the diamonds in the rough that they are, with Goto in particular sifting the sugars from her spice a little better this time around. Like on the band's previous effort,
Aratame ma***e..., a song's mood or vocal delivery can go from kitsch to bitch like the flip of a switch, giving the music its erratic, eccentric appeal. But on
Shinsekai, songs more often stay aligned with whatever bizarre mood affinity they are given; if a song's vocals are clean, they usually stay clean throughout, and likewise, if the instrumentation is loud and violent, it'll keep swaggering til' it's pooped. You also have songs that eschew the punk elements entirely, such as the album's bittersweet opener "鳩", leaving nothing but gentle drums, pianos and a wishful voice stringing together a very heartfelt and cute ballad-type song. What a treat. The album's final track swings in the opposite direction, vommitting crazy, noisy punk rock out from the album's fiery belly. Everything in between covers literally everything in between.
It's arguably a stronger album than
Aratame ma***e..., but there's no boobs on the cover here so you probably don't even care. Correct yourself, because
Shinsekai is a fruitful upgrade to an already badass sound.
