Melt-Banana – 3+5

A-ZAP

More than a decade since the last MxBx record and what have they learnt? Mercifully, not much. If you were blindfolded you’d probably pick this out as a Melt-Banana album even if your ears were clogged up and you were a bit hungover.

I am, perhaps, being a little disingenuous — there’s a fair amount of studio-ness to this — actual harmonic parts, layered vocals and guitars, sprinklings of synth fun. The thing with MxBx being that they’ve always incorporated many samples into their live show — even before they lopped off their rhythm section, guitarist Agata used a lot of effect magic to fill out their sound.

Always the magic of MxBx has been in the live show, for me at least, and this’ll be another raft of turn-on-a-dime magic to see us through the next few tours. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a revival of interest in recording from them. Probably the thing I always enjoyed most about them is that they’re like if hardcore punk was fun, or if all those interminable bands that go fast and changeable (I’m thinking of Mike Patton in general) were a great deal more terminable. Or tasteful, or capable of pop structures, harmonies, understanding how the vocal relates to rhythm and … not dogshit.

MxBx are the high water mark of something and I’m not clear, 25+ years into being a fan of theirs, what that something is. They’re definitely better than punk and hardcore are.

The tunes themselves? I don’t want to undersell this as an album — it’s brief and cutting and chock full of ideas. It all sounds like MxBx, like, devoutly so. All the ideas that happen, all the dynamics, the barking lyrics, the tonal breadth, the almost-too-fast-to-dance bass drums, the guitar invention, the over-before-you-know-it-ness — it’s all here in spades. It might be that the songs are getting longer in their dotage, but that means two out of nine songs north of three minutes. So no danger of anything but the most compressed form of prog.

They’re on tour later this year. If you’ve read this far and you don’t know them, they’re a band that everyone should see. This is a record that will further supplement their live show. Perhaps one day there will be statues in every venue of Melt-Banana; but you should go and see them live, on the basis of this album, anyway.

-Kev Nickells-