album of the week: 3.5

tsushimamire

GIVING BLOOD

Mojor Records (2011)

why you'll love it: jagged and hard rocking as ever

why you'll hate it: toned down the bi-polar gimmick / still hard on the ears to some

Is the official name tsushimamire now? I haven't seen つしまみれ printed on an album cover in quite a few years. So I don't know... I'm gonna go with tsushimamire for this review.

Unlike last week's sweet & overclocked sweeter album, tsushimamire has grown a reputation of being sweet & sour. They can be ditsy and childish at times, but that is only to lead you into a rusty bear trap of screaming and distortion. Most people will probably be happy to hear that in their third album, there is no candy bait to GIVING BLOOD. It's almost nothing but crunch and noise.

Luckily, this trio is really good at making noise. "Doing Nothing" is an instant classic. Punk the the core, relentless, and not wasting a second. "なmellow" is a moody complicated holdover from their early years of demos and EPs. It fits in seamlessly with this tracklist where overt silliness is kept to a minimum. That isn't to say they stopped having fun with their songs. "Grapefruit Girl" doesn't drop the distortion, but its harmonic vocals make it the closest thing to pop on here. "French Toast Rendezvous" and "Bryan" are also clear just-for-fun songs, but without resorting to most of their old schizoid tricks.

In what is meant to be the defining song for this album, "献血Song" eschews all catchiness or cuteness for a 9 minute mad rant. While it doesn't use anything they haven't tried before in portions of much shorter songs, its a bit of uncharted territory for the group in ambition and dedication. Obviously, the message is lost in the language barrier, and it's certainly not a song you play for fun; but it's remarkable nonetheless.

Without their defining bait and switch, tsushimamire loses a bit of what makes them special. There are a couple flat songs in the middle of this album that could have benefitted from a usual injection of craziness. On the other hand, I found it commendable of them to make a different sounding album; even if this isn't really branching out, rather a light pruning.