Demos

Mayors of Miyazaki - Kancho

Angus Reid 20/07/2007

Rating: 5/5

At only five tracks long, I'm not sure if this counts as an E.P. or an album, the only thing I can be certain of is that it rocks. Hard. The members of Mayors Of Miyazaki are all occupied with other bands as part of the Tooting Bizarre collective, meaning they have a rage of pretty diverse influences, which shows through from the opening crunch of Betwixt Two Things to the final notes of closing track Genital Ben. Where to even start with this lot? The vocals are reminiscent of both Bloc Party and Yourcodenameis: Milo, which is something I never though I'd be saying about any act. Then we have the enormous math-rock inspired crunching guitars that could be straight from Redneck Manifesto, coupled with a knack for a tune that simply cannot be ignored. This is quite simply brilliant.

Queen Mary Vs. The Robots starts with a spaced out guitar sound that hints at perhaps an epic slow jam kind of feel - it delivers nothing of the sort however, and unfolds into and epic, multi-riffed beast that hurtles along at breakneck speed. As we then move onto Critics Lack Conviction we're treated to a brief lounge jazz interlude of all things, before it's deep into riff territory again, broken up by space noises Vangelis would be proud of. You could honestly live inside this record, listening to nothing else for a month and still not discover everything it has to offer. It is by turns filled with frantic enthusiasm, mellow wig outs, crunching riffs and always a sense of relentless inventiveness.

There has been some real quality stuff released this year for people who like a bit of thought to go with their music, with Battles finally releasing their album, the return of Fridge, the promise of an album from iLiKETRAiNS, but on the evidence presented on this album EP, Mayors of Miyazaki have trumped them all with a massive concussion of shape-pulling, manic, shouty rock creativity. The best thing I've heard this year so far.