CITY CALLS REVOLUTION

Let me say - for me, there are two sorts of psychedelic progressive rock. One is what I listen to for some comfort or relaxed mind, and another is for getting more active and more powerful - a musical charger as it is said. GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE, a power play, is of course the latter.

As said about Jaapnese psychedelic bands, GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE's musical style on City Calls Revolution is the garage rock flavour of MARBLE SHEEP blended with the spacey innovation of ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE. Aside from just the beginning of the first track Concrete City Breakdown, mellow and hypnotic spelling of a keyboard solo, here is exactly a lump of fuzzy, noisy, hardy guitar and active, aggressive, cumulative drums and percussion. Obsucure voices and whispers and shouts can make their sounds more violent and more incoherent - sorry that I cannot understand Dead K's voices, not only English words but Japanese ones, but his voices should be a real violent instrument itself, especially the Japanese shouts like a leftist movement or proclamation in the latter part of the Concrete City Breakdown. Who cares what they said in the track - everything active, everything powerful, and everything violent is okay for us 'depressed listeners'. (Um, in this sense, the beginning of fragile keyboard sounds would be heard like an weird opening act. ) OMGS is characterized by an intense battle between a speedy guitar and strengthened drums. Fiercely terribly terrific with violent shouts added! Demagog is exactly a psychedelic grind core as from Earache label.

And, contrary to the previous tracks, the longest laidback jam session A Day in the Planet Orange gets started unnoticed. Slowly stoner / shoegaze and strongly persistent riffs by all instruments including crazy chorus are immediately erosive and comfortably itchy bitchy. An earachy and deeply dignified guitar solo in the second third of the track should be kickin' knockin' us "tired listeners" and makin' us active and aggressive immediately. The last third part is, I consider, surely "lingering imagery" or "subtle overtones" with exploded violence once again at last. Why don't we get powerful and intensive with bein' immersed by this volcanic work?

Sadly, absolutely sadly, GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE has suspended their activity - we may not gain their power anymore.

Great freak-out jamming output from the Japanese trio GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE, partially build up with a heavy, sometimes even noisy punk attitude on 'City Calls Revolution'. Four songs with an approximate length of 70 minutes - this is pointing to at least one extended epic. And there are even two I would say - starting with Concrete City Breakdown initiated by a mellow spacey bass/synthesizer collaboration. The band, featuring new bassist T, let you listen to music made up with creativity and structure in opposite to aimless noodling.

And then all machines are immediately running on maximum speed to take you on a freaky ride - tons of acid, echoing and fusionesque guitar work furthermore, a hypnotic bass, furious drums and wild high-pitch vocals somewhere between screaming and singing. Taking a breath here and there this is coming near to the trickiness of 'The Mars Volta' or 'Sonic Youth' - excellent! OMGS now is adopting an attitude of punk and garage blending impressions where Demagog comes less tricky but shines with joy of playing though. This is a fine heavy psych jam at least showing their excellent instrumental interaction.

The 38 minute running suite A Day In The Planet Orange is consisting of a blues inspired jam half way through proving Dead K's complete guitar skills. This is gliding then into a spacey part coupled with mysterious Japanese vocals and samples until the band falls into a weird crushing and puzzling attitude once more. This track is a rollercoaster ride by all means (especially if you really take the time to listen completely).

GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE are offering a creative and powerful performance with this album and it might also give you a clue how impressing their live gigs must have evolved (don't know if they are still active yet). 'City Calls Revolution' is well done - suitable in any case if you're new to this band.

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.