Melt-Banana : 3+5
Following on from the bittersweet artistic triumph of Shellac’s To All Trains earlier this summer, it’s now the point in the season for the return of another great, cacophonous group—one that played a key role in my formative enjoyment of noise rock in the smoking room of my best friend’s parents’ house. Though that’s how I, personally, discovered them, Melt-Banana had already been around for nearly a decade before that, having already released five albums of experimental, abrasive, yet melodic noise rock.
Having crossed paths themselves with the late, great Steve Albini—who engineered their 1995 album Scratch or Stitch—Melt-Banana first played as a quartet, then a trio, before bassist Rika Hamamoto exited the band ahead of the release of their last album, 2013’s Fetch. Now a full-time duo comprising guitarist Ichiro Agata and vocalist Yasuko Onuki, Melt-Banana have toured regularly in the intervening period and garnered a formidable reputation as an abrasive live act leading up to the release of their latest, 3 + 5.
Agata’s playing is strong throughout the album, maintaining his trademark treble-heavy riff style. Onuki also continues the high-pitched shrieking style for which she has become well-known over the course of the group’s discography. The album opens with “Code” and “Puzzle,” two songs which establish this sonic style well, while “Case D” and “Stopgap” raise the tempo considerably, Agata sounding like his guitar’s racing to catch up to the songs’ pounding drumbeats. Yet his incredibly treble-focused approach is often unbalanced without the grounding of heavy, bassy moments that he brought to his riffing on Fetch. There are glimpses of the latter style in the driving guitar sounds he makes during the bridges on “Scar,” but these deeper noises then peter out when the song becomes sonically dominated by spacey-sounding vocals and synths.
At a lean and mean 1 minute and 56 seconds, “Flipside” is the shortest, hardest, fastest song on 3 + 5, and the song’s frenetic pace makes it a standout. The synths and bass interlock well on “Hex,” and on “Whisperer,” Agata’s guitar-playing again sounds like it could do with being somewhat deeper, thicker, and sludgier. “Seeds” makes for a solid closing song, again helped by the fact that the riffing during its verses features elements of that sludgier playing style.
3 + 5 is an enjoyable album. Its songs are not as strong and its playing not as accomplished as Fetch’s, but it remains fun to listen to, and they nonetheless have an admirable succinctness about them (just three of its nine songs go on past the three-minute mark). Regardless, it’s thrilling to hear the band make their return after an 11-year absence, and it could well serve as an effective introduction to the band’s body of work for a new generation of noise addicts.
Label: A-ZAP
Year: 2024
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