CITY CALLS REVOLUTION

Much like the Boredoms, this Japanese group has roots in the hardcore scene but have since graduated to the world of crazy cosmic psychedelic music. But whereas the Boredoms have beefed up their sound with multiple layers of instruments and studio wonderment, this group prefers to keep it raw, live, and simple. Think of them as the modern Japanese equivalent to Guru Guru - crazed, echoey songs that jam relentlessly, keeping your attention through the incredible energy level they're able to sustain for many minutes at a time.

This album, usually considered their best (I haven't heard any others), is over 70 minutes long, consisting of two very long tracks and two shorter tracks. "Concrete City Breakdown" opens the album with a deceptively calm synthesizer intro, until the drums, bass and guitar come in with furious riffing and frenzied vocals. The song goes through several movements, different settings for some wailing guitar solos and ultra-fast drumming. At 19 minutes long, it's a wild ride of a song. "OMGs" follows, with what almost resembles a hardcore song, but impossibly stretched out to 7 minutes, incorporating lots of impressive rhythmic twists and turns. My favorite track, the 8 minute "Demagog", follows, with a classic prog song structure (I'm thinking "Schizoid Man" here). Awesome riff in the vocal section, with a different but related middle section, returning to the vocal section to close. Bringing the album to a close is the 38 minute "A Day in the Planet Orange", which is pretty much what you'd expect it to be -- drifting jams divided into multiple sections, with a fairly quiet one towards the end, suddenly erupting into the inevitable conclusion. Personally, I probably would have preferred it shorter (say, a mere 20 minutes), with another short snappy track like "Demagog" added instead, but I really can't otherwise find anything to complain about with this epic track -- it flows well while it's on, and it gives the album its first real relaxed mood, taking several minutes to build out of its ambient-like beginning.

While I don't usually go ga-ga over psychedelic jam music for its own sake, this band has enough energy to keep the listener on his (or her... yeah right) toes. This is hard-edged mind melt music. I give it a strong three stars -- captivating and well played, but overall just not enough ideas generated for the amount of time it lasts.