26 September 2024
Brighton
For the third time this year I’m reviewing Melt-Banana and this surely is a good thing, for lo they are mighty.
But halt ye! There is aforethought afoot.
Openers tonight were Lower Slaughter. A quartet of folk with riffing on their minds. I’ve seen them before, but they’re a lot better for having the space to move about, and the chance for their vocalist to stretch out the mic lead. It’s a heavy sound but nowhere near metal — riffs and shouting, but with a wee dash of harmonic work. I noted Polvo and Status Quo in my head as possible influences, but really it’s riffing. Some great banter and wide-eyed maniacal delivery from the singer, a drummer with a pleasing amount of hair, a bassist the right amount of stoic-looking and a guitarist who grins a lot. Check ’em out in your locale innit. And then we have Melt-Banana. First thing to say, because I am a boring man of a certain age who is into music, is that the sound was much better than at Supersonic a couple of weeks ago. It may be the case that in the era of Yasuko‘s wavey bleepy thing that the sound is more inclined towards the sequenced drums’n’synths, but our photographer’s namesake Agata is still a technique machine, scratching and noising all over. Something I really liked, that I didn’t notice before, is there’s at least one tune with a guitar sound that’s very Keiji Haino. It is right and correct that a Japanese band should pay homage to the best rock band. It’s only brief but it is very ’90s Fushitsusha. Something I also enjoyed a lot was that the crowd wasn’t mostly men my age — plenty of younglings springing about with their green bones grinning like fools. Best way to enjoy Melt-Banana, arguably.Recent material lists towards the two-minute assault and it’s all fun. It occurred to me that given the tempos and the fact that it’s sequenced drums, Melt-Banana may well be the world’s most successful speedcore band on a technical level. It’s got a lot of similarities with punk and hardcore, but it has an intensity that’s uncommon to guitar music, for my money. So let’s say they’re a speedcore band.
They do a wee encore of the wee songs from the Cactuses Come In The Flocks / MxBx 1998 era, which is lovely to see. Yasuko as ever a charming dancer and seemingly genuinely happy to have people turn up for them. Also worth noting that they’re both rake-thin — clearly touring for a quarter-century and sweating it out on stage is good for them. Strongly in the category of ‘band everyone should see‘ and I’ve saying that twenty-odd years now. No change to that assessment tonight. I hope you can see them this year, dear reader.-Words: Kev Nickells-
-Pictures: Agata Urbaniak-
