It starts with a breakdown — shredded and distorted guitar and screeching electronics, flailing engine thrum, unrelenting blast-beat thuds. Normally, this dense and disjointed mess would indicate the end of a track, but here it is the beginning, where incipient ideas wend and collide until the quartet finds its footing and slogs on into a churning and beautifully discordant jam.
MNHRS is the double-duo of Toshiji Mikawa and Jun Numata on electronics and guitar and Yusuke Nishimura and Masataka Fujikake on bass and drums establishing their sound. As the roster, which features veterans of Incapacitants and Hijokaidan and collaborations with Keiji Haino, might indicate, their sound is hard and abrasive, firmly fixed in the Japanese noise-rock tradition. This might also give indication as to the band's thundering power-trio+1 sound. To the classic instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums line-up, MNHRS adds a nearly constant onslaught of electronics. Rather playing second fiddle to the guitar through laying atmospherics and bridging the electro-acoustic divide (listen to the way the synthetic fizzle bleeds into the high-hat on "Minutes"), these more often take on the role of ersatz lead guitar to dizzying effect. At its more intense moments, this music evokes an over-caffeinated deer prancing and bucking on one's cranium. At other times, the pulse takes over and leans back into extended heavy space-rock. On these numbers, it is easy to focus on Mikawa and Numata. However, Nishimura and Fujikake likewise command attention, laying mucky drones and steady but varied and utterly infectious rhythms that seem to repel the frontmen's bleeps, sirens, shocks and shreds. They are a true, like-minded unit.
MNHRS is pummeling music. It can be craggy, even ear-shattering. At the same time, the band stands out as they harness those effects within some deliciously groove-heavy guitar music. This never falls too far to one side or another for long. Instead, it strikes the right balance. Those turned off by metal-rending Japanoise should find enough claggy jamming here to hold their attention. Those who thirst for the former will also find their fill of ear-piercing shrills and amplified cosmic radio static to guide them into the more rhythmic elements. (The transitions on this album are seamless, as far as one can use that term for this type of music.) Those looking for both (and everything in between) can just put this on their stereo, kick back, and bob their head in deep satisfaction. And maybe throw a chair or two through a window.
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