MELT-BANANA — Cactuses Come In The Flocks (review)

MELT-BANANA — Cactuses Come In The Flocks album cover Album · 1994 · Metal Related Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
This one is guaranteed to get all those WTF responses! I used to play this just to see the looks on people’s faces upon first exposure to the insanity known as MELT BANANA, a Japanese extremity that takes noise rock and noisecore to its noisiest levels of abrasiveness. Personally i love this sonic torture!

CACTUSES COME IN FLOCKS is their debut album (originally released on cassette only) and shows the band in their most raw and primal freakiness. This defies categorization but it does include elements from different known genres such as punk and metal and even psychedelia. It first and foremost reminds the listener of a highly caffeinated punk band with the over-the-top noise-fest, attitude and total disregard for any musical sugar coatings. MELT BANANA seriously masters the art of dissonance that is designed to murder melodies, strangle song structures and rapaciously rape the receptors that normally would translate sound into musical pleasure.

I always thought of this early incarnation of MELT BANANA as psychedelic punk with caffeinated Japanese cheerleaders screaming for vengeance. Throughout this brief but exhausting cacophonous extravaganza we get one type of tortured blast of noise after another. The types that make other noise rock bands like Sonic Youth sound like bubblegum pop in comparison. However despite the successful attempt to keep even the faintest hint of a melodic presence from creeping in, this music is actually quite rhythmic and that is the glue that holds it all together despite entering atonality central.

Certainly not for the non-adventurous music freaks out there! Kenny G this is not. This will undoubtedly leave many victims scratching their heads in disdain. While i love this kind of stuff i have to admit that i’m much more partial to the later albums MELT BANANA released which incorporate much easier-on-the-ears material with decent production and the whole shebang, however as far as debut albums that were clearly made to be as prickly as the cactus on the cover, i can’t think of a more successful debut that gleefully flaunts musical middle-fingers in the most adolescent punk way possible! Looking for something to REALLY bug your parents? Look no further :P
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