With the sound of this 3 piece Japanese MONSTER group falling down the veritable amplified cliff we sonically clatter off to the grand start of another Kawabata Mokoto project, and one of his finest to date by very ‘umble very’ eavy reckoning…Course there’s too much Mokoto to hear, unless yr realllllyyyy collecting, but he must have made it his aim in life to aurally tickle/seduce/caress/infect & brutalize every freaked out pair of ears from the east to western hemispheres…“Electric Heavyland too HEAVY fawya?” he sez “Then i’ll give ’em La Novia…that too tripped out and mediatational for ye? Then i’ll run ye thru the whole acoustic/kraut/psyche friend-collective of Do Wahtever You Want…” Now you want straight ahead Blue Cheer Rawk? Ok, fasten yr gums around this ‘un…It comes in 2 flavours the black and the green, like big flat fruit pastilles, and can you help but chew? Is yer mouth waterin’ just trying to hold back? Give In…Give In…Consume!
Now of course, when i say ‘straight-ahead rock’, that’s a given that it’s as straight ahead as some bootlace thin twirling and a changing and a spiralling mountain track with the boulders falling all around and the mules pricking up their ears for the next ton of rock fall just around that corner…
Me, im normally a bit of a curmudgeon, a bit unimpressed by default despite my finer feelings, got the disease too where i buy records just to buy records and sure, sure I KNOW they’re fabulous, and sure, sure I DO love ’em but there’s TOO damn many records on the floor and a woofer barks in the left ear and a tweeter tweetles in the right ear and there’s a bigger pile on the floor and theyz al GREAT rekkids coz i KNOW they’re GREAT rekkids and i been TOLD they’re great rekkids and so i’ve had to find out meself, on spec, unheard that they’re great MAJESTIC records, an so they are, but there’s the job, and laundry to drag to the washeteria and every machine is full, and there’s shoe soles to glue, the phone to watch, the bus to curse at, a painting to finsih, the beard to trim and there’s no damn time and there’s this yet BIGGER pile o’ rekkids on the floor and I guess, I guess for a while i conclude between beer keller and bedroom that by gum there’s something awful big missing in my life, a whole to keep impossibly filling, if you will, so keep buying these records with not enough time to hear ’em and wasa wasa point and maybe i’m dumb as a crate of horsehoes for not liking an LP as much as others may do, and how i’m gonna pay for ’em anyhow and I WON’T do it again and there’s no DAMN POINT anyhow, until, Until, UNTIL…
Track one : Ah Dinnae wan to do owt, but ah still wan money (no kidding, 1st 2 tracks Do have cod Scottish titles!). What fine recognisable sentiments! And after the band pick themselves up from the bottom of that Mashalled up cliff they plunge again into one of the most infectious HEAVY riffs I’ve heard since, well what’sthe most catchy riff you know? Hell I can’t name em all at all, but un-rest assured they ALL start jumping in during this perfectly balanced barrage…Ever gone off to thee Rock club to regain yr glory and adrenalized days, and before goin’ out played ALLL yr fave ‘jump up ‘n’ down on the couch’ toons, had a couple of beers or 6, played more fine as May wine records (cuz records ARE GREAT MAN!), primped and preened in the mirror before deciding yr Tiny Tim (whether he ROCKS or not) t‑shirt and gonna cut it TONIGHT, but all the time spinning more magic tunes and so, i dunno yr marching down the street and you’ve got all these killer riffs pouring thru yr ears and hair and making you grin yer converse tops off, so you’ve got MC5BLUECHEERFLIPPERSABBATHMONOSHOCK
FLOWERTRAVELLIN’BANDKISSAMONDUULBRAINDONOR
GURUGURUACDCMOTORHEADMETALLICAMONKS
GOMORRHAGROUNDHOGSHAWKWINDMINORTHREAT
PINKYNPERKYMONTROSEANDALLTHEMOTHERS goin right thru yerand you put yr foot thru the door of the club to regain yr lost youth and banish yr grumpy ole soul an’ instead of monster riffs, instead of a mouthful of Kerrannnnnngggg,instead of the immortal feast of dance n bludgeon you get over sugared nupunknumetal cereal that goes out of date in3 weeks. WELL, that stops HERE…All Rock DJs should be forced at fuzz-pedal and theremin point to play this LP on repeat all night (or at least first 2 tracks..Oh that’s NOT enuff)…Well you can poss. forget the coupla ballad type ones no way near real ballads of course,but they’ll but a slight dint in yr amp feast fest, tho they might give you a breather…Cuz what you get here is not just monster riffs, but GODZILLA with 3 fuckin’ heads and a double neck SG/Strat beast, whacking out syncopation with his spiked up tail amd playing the mother of all riffs in the world at once, yet seperate…If you thought MAINLINER riffola was catchier than the old black ‘n’ bubonic plague, check out “Hoos the fuck that et tha rest o man schoo?” Followed by “Superstation” and than the ever-so-simple 3 chording mesmerisis of “Let’s Zeppelin” with bassist/singer Tsuyama Atsushi doing spot on and hilarious R.Plant homage/piss take as he whezes and groans the whole LOTTA LOVE yelp/echo/yelp bit thru the WHOLE song! It just goes on and on over it’s 4 sublime sides from those, the black, to these, the green as a strained chanting and bell ringing thumps bass laden into “Constitution of the State of Western Japan, article 14”…getting into ‘death metal’ territoty here…The last 2 tracks are long and live and end with another track worth it just for the title alone; “The Undertaker is a Tombstone Maker” which tales off sounding like the Stooges play Electric Funeral, and which for me, along with the rest of this mad, bad, fine and all mine LP puts the grin back on the chin (it’s a SLOPPY grin, awlright?), the cojones back in the tight Morrison troos and gets the fingers twitching like that novice air guitarist i once was…Most of all it’s an article of faith, putting THAT F word back in WHY I do what i do, why I LOVE what I like, why I know WHERE I am…and more importantly why the huge pile of rekkids is on the floor…there’s LIFE in those run-out grooves and life in these bones that ain’t run out yet…

(P.S…hence my first attempted record review for Unsung)
(P.P.S…Cannot guarantee same miraculous high for other listeners!)