Review Summary: Part two of Buck-Tick's circular pair experiment trades subtlety for boisterousness. And more beeps.
The concept of a circular album – that is, one that starts and finishes at more-or-less the same point – is a little unusual, although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of their existence. There are, after all, circular books and films, and therefore I’d wager my knowledge gap of them is almost certainly one of ignorance. That being said, a circular duo of albums is downright gratuitous; Buck-Tick’s duo of
Kyokutou I Love You and
Mona Lisa OVERDRIVE is exactly that, however, the former released in 2002 and the latter (of course being this review’s subject) falling a year later.
Mona Lisa…’s more immediately rewarding moments come from their forays into the world of the straightforward rock number – something tackled with consummate ease. The one-two of ‘BUSTER’ and ‘Zangai -Shape 2’ fashion out a powerful angle from which to start the ‘album proper’, adhering to the tried-and-tested ‘guitars and chorus’ shtick with gung-ho confidence; the latter performs its duty perfectly as a single, its ohrwurm battering through into memory with distinctly little grace. A similarly enthusiastic line of attack is taken on ‘Genzai’, which bears a resemblance to Queen’s ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ courtesy of its short length and percussive relentlessness; on the other hand, ‘Black Cherry’ yields the album’s most relaxed fare, replacing the aggression with a slower, more self-assured swagger.
As to be expected from the Fujioka quartet, however, there’s a few oddities – particularly being a release not big on subtlety. Opening track ‘Nakayubi’ builds from
Kyokutou I Love You’s abrasive closer (‘Continue’) with equally confrontational sentiment, the wordsmiths managing to fit an impressive 48 permutations of the f-word into about 3 and a half minutes. ‘LIMBO’s blocky pulse and (frankly, blush-inducingly) sexual lyrics surely cement its place as the soundtrack to any self-respecting android orgy, while Imai’s homage to both 1970s punk and Philip Glass, ‘Sid Vicious ON THE BEACH’, is probably the ‘cyberpunk’ aesthetic distilled to its purest form. Indeed, the one lynchpin that holds
Mona Lisa… together is the industrial influence which permeates each song. On some tracks this is obvious (the aforementioned ‘LIMBO’, the scuzzy ‘Ai no Uta’), whereas on others its application is a little less heavy-handed; ‘GIRL’ is a good example. A decidedly ‘pretty’ song, the adjective used is not a typical hallmark of industrial’s usually cold gaze – yet, simply by adding a smidge of vocal chorusing and non-intrusive technological sounds, it maintains its pleasant feeling without sacrificing the album’s overall style.
Ultimately though,
Mona Lisa… is a classic example of an album only as good as its hooks. Its strongest tracks – ‘BUSTER’, ‘Zangai’, ‘LIMBO’, ‘GIRL’ and ‘Genzai’ – all get by either on vocal catchiness first, sheer energy second, or (in the case of the first two) a mixture of both. Where these criteria are met, happy days. When not, mediocrity ensues. ‘Monster’, a nigh-on amorphous brick of industrial grime and breakbeats disguised as a rock song, comes and goes without so much as a raised eyebrow (the only reflection one can make is the feeling of a missed opportunity); the title track, while fulfilling the energy criterion, is sadly plagued by frustrating ‘rap’ verses and an irritating chorus melody. As such, given the choice of any Buck-Tick album to, theoretically, play on a never-ending loop alongside
Kyokutou…, this is probably not going to be the final decision made. However, that is as much a reflection on the strength of their discography as it is one on the album itself;
Mona Lisa OVERDRIVE is still a very worthwhile release for a band still exploring a sound (in this case, cyberpunk) within its eventual twilight years.
