ADOLESCENT SEX

Well what a great disappointment Japan´s debut album Adolescent Sex has been for me. I have listened to some of David Sylvian´s solo work which I think is really great, and of course I had to go to the source to see where it all came from, but this doesn´t sound much like the David Sylvian I know.

The music on Adolescent Sex is early new wave but with a lot of David Bowie and Roxy Music influences. The songs are not vey exciting for a prog rock fan like me. There are almost no surprises in the song structures and the instrumental parts are generally not something special. The few times something sound prog like it´s when Richard Barbieri ( Porcupine Tree) plays some nice keyboards. Especially the first song Transmission and the song Performance have pretty great keyboard parts. In fact when I heard Transmission I was really looking forward to listening to the rest of the album, as that song is really excellent. Had the rest of the album been like this, it would have been a 4 star album.

The sound quality is very good and I like the eighties sounds that Japan uses. The sound kind of remind me of UK, but the music doesn´t.

I can´t give more than 2 stars for this album even though there are a few great parts here and there. Overall it´s not my taste though.