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| All Images: November 2019 |
Katamari
Damacy is a video game about
replenishing the cosmos by rolling a sticky ball — a katamari — all over the
planet, gathering objects along the way / That's pretty much how these annoying, contrary youngsters like to go about their entire business / The band taunts you, smashes you over the head, and
dares you to ask for more / their mammoth ideations never cease to
thrill / A new city is being built on old
floodplains and dogshit parks / the product of a boundless creative spirit
and unwavering technicality / Instead of quiet-loud / It is primordial and
juvenile, dumb and clever, arch and true
it's impressive what these four dudes
can do at such a young age / Where there are melodies, there are complete
meltdowns into chaotic noise; where there are / Offhand theories / there are
unsettling shouts of terror and where there is light, there is of course— / a
very particular kind of clattery racket / I don’t have the music theory
background to even begin to parse out the record’s absurdly difficult / banjo
and drum machine parts / and even the longer ones seem to go by in a blip /
There are synthesizers / and an armful of / accordions / atop numerous squalls of
industrial garb / The vocals are,
frankly, batshit crazy... / a short burst of gibberish-core / upgraded
with the litany of / Alfred Schnittke
Unfortunately, this means that the
end product is rather unrefined and the experimental, improvised nature of
their creations can be tiresome from the listener’s perspective / At times,
they seem to meander off / In effect, if you are caught by the Katamari, you
have reached the event horizon / while praying you never make eye contact / Lack of
resolution is probably the album’s defining aspect / no amount of gravitational force can pull you out / older dudes who long
for the days when prog bands like King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer
ruled / could easily fall off at any moment
one gets the feeling that this is an
important moment for guitar music / The kitchen-sink mentality lays itself out
in front of our very own eyes, symbiotic metalworks mutating and taking on new
forms / it’s messy hi-fi / It’s the sinister Katamari Keita Takahashi
never wanted made flesh / What’s also exciting is the way these songs rock and groove / There’s so much going on here that nothing ever gets bogged down enough
to fees indulgent or wanky / I still can’t do any better of a job describing
these nine maniacal songs / But here’s what I do know: this is one of the best
albums I’ve ever heard / For all the talk of / prime counter-programming / it’s clear that these are either genii at work / finding a way to
use the avant-garde toolset / like noted
explorer of the sonic outer limits Shirley Bassey / or you’re being had
In fact, expect nothing at all from
the band because it is the only way to enjoy these phenoms / we realise
that there are some things / about as congruous as David Lynch having been to the same film school as
/ people who watch drum tutorials online / Indeed,
there’s humor here / which
is so powerful that / you may never want to hear it again in your life / And with that,
there’s just nothing more to say. Listen or don’t / That's your prerogative
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