MAXIMUM MONEY MONSTER

'Maximum Money Monster' - Zeni Geva (2/10)

In my experience with avant-garde or experimental music of virtually all varieties, there is music that I may despise at first, but slowly grows on me, revealing new things to me, the listener as I invest more time and thought into it. With this precedent in mind, I will often give these more adventurous artists a fair bit more time to figure out if I like them than the typical band, who may generally sound enough alike stuff I have heard before to make a fairly painless judgement. With quite a bit of 'strange' music that I don't quite understand at first, I may not always come to love it, but at the very least, I find a greater appreciation for the album as time goes on.

This unfortunately, is not one of those albums.

Zeni Geva are a heavy metal band for Japan who, among other things, can be said to have a fairly unique sound to them. To my ears, it crosses me as being some sort of hybrid of freaky Japavant quirk and classic thrash metal, and there have been times when I have liked the music that the band makes. After all, especially in a day and age where there are virtually millions of bands out there, a little originality goes a long way. Sadly, the musical enjoyment is not here on 'Maximum Money Monster', and there are quite a few things I likely would have rather listened to than this.

What we have here is fairly functional, yet generally subpar guitar riffs that are reminiscent of thrash or even punk music being monotonously repeated throughout each track. On top of that, we have the wailing Samurai yells of vocalist KK Null, who is above and beyond the most distinctive and enjoyable aspect of this band. His diverse style of singing and shouting gives Zeni Geva a very Japanese sensibility to them naturally, and its such a shame that there is such uninspired songwriting and execution to go along with it.

To Zeni Geva's credit, the guitar riffs are given a slightly twangy tinge to them that somehow reminds me of Voivod, but this is largely where my compliments end. Largely, its not even the quality of the riffs themselves- which are nothing spectacular- but rather the way they are used. The sixteen minute 'Slam King' should be a perfect way to illustrate this. Throughout most of this plodding monster, one singer riff is repeated, with the vocalist doing the same chant overtop. While I get the picture that is meant to be 'hypnotic' or whatever, it is really, really not working for such a raw and filthy sound. There is virtually no sense of build up, nothing to justify sitting through all of it.

While the other tracks here are much shorter, they generally follow the formula of monotony, taking riffs that weren't even that great to begin with, and then overusing them to the point of nausea. I would stay away from this one.

Maximum Money Monster is actually reissue of the band's debut LP Maximum Love & Fuck with four additional tracks. Band leader KK Null describes Zeni Geva as progressive hardcore and has cited King Crimson, Art Bears and such as some of his favourite bands and influences. And you know what, ZG does have more than little of that angular and dissonant avant-prog edge, although as a whole they're closer to early Swans or Godflesh kind of sound and feel. Especially in this early stuff of theirs.

KK Null plays the guitar and sings, and Tabata (Boredoms, Acid Mothers Temple and many other Japanese cult bands) plays the other guitar. I assume Null takes care of the low-end riffs and Tabata does his psychedelic things on top. Original Maximum Love & Fuck tracks have Ikuo Taketani on drums and Tatsuya Yoshida (Koenjihyakkei, Ruins, etc...) on the added ones. Taketani's style is simpler and more muscular, while Yoshida's is lively and energetic. Both suit their respective tracks well and bring variation to the whole. Yoshida also sings backing vocals on two songs. As you noticed, there's no bass player, but that's not needed, as Null's guitar (as I presume) takes care of the low frequencies well enough. I think it also gives their music more air to breathe.

Much of the music is based on repetitive, more or less dissonant riffs. Opening track "Slam King" repeats the same thing with ever so slight variations for 16 minutes and the hypnosis carries well all through it. You can only admire the band's restraint and discipline. The rest are shorter and less simple, but nothing super-technical, although there are odd time signatures and tempo changes here and there. Null's vocals are commanding and lyrics seem to repeat a few simple phrases mostly, some in Japanese, some in English. No idea what he's singing about, but all considered, I guess it's not about kittens and stuff. Last track "On Suicide" takes it's lyrics from Bertolt Brecht and it's (slightly) lighter and more experimental track. With some imagination, you can picture 80s King Crimson doing something similar. As a whole the album is more varied than it may seem at first and a very rewarding listen if noisy avant-rock is your thing.

Three bonus live tracks on Cold Spring reissue CD are ok but nothing special. Cherry tree branches on the cover first look like barbed wire or skeleton parts. Which suits the contents perfectly.

If this was noiserockarchives, the album would be very close to five stars, but since this is progarchives, I can't give it more than three well-deserved ones. Essential for fans of early Swans, Godflesh, Melvins, Jesus Lizard and such.