As harsh as I am about pop music, there are glimmers of hope in the muddled trash. While not perfectly analogous, the Japanese pop scene also has its own particular tropes and crap that is followed which I find marginally more enjoyable. But this isn't really about pop music. It's about rock. More importantly, this is about the band 9mm Parabellum Bullet.
As a band, 9mm Parabellum Bullet was formed in 2004 and so have been around a decent amount of time now. However, throughout what's amazed me about them is not their sound, but their ability to experiment and improve. In the past 10 years they've released 5 albums which is not too bad. Not nearly as prolific as Alstroemeria Records who I posted about last month, but 5 albums in 10 years isn't too shabby at all. More importantly, like Alstroemeria Records, each album is different from the last whether that's good or bad. Since there are only 5, I'll talk about each of them just because.
Starting with Termination, they had a pretty good punk or alternative rock sound. The vocals were always present but where they shined as a band was in the guitars and bass. The difference between good and great bands in my opinion is the ability to mix the front man or singer with the guitars and drums. I can say that I have not heard another band in recent history that pays as much attention to the instrumentals as 9mm Parabellum Bullet. In Termination, the guitars were the main focus and the vocals were important but not the star in my opinion which I enjoyed greatly especially on a track like "Battle March" or the title track "Termination".
Moving on from Termination though, Vampire I felt was a great album and the first one I actually listened to back in 2008. Between "Vampiregirl" and "Supernova", Vampire had a really fun and engaging sound. Definitely a departure from their kind of rough and unpolished more punk sound, Vampire was a more fluid and honestly more dynamic album. Personally I feel like as a whole, the album worked better together musically with the individual tracks meshing well with each other. Of note on the album is the full instrumental track "Revenge of the Surf Queen" which is more of a funk 70s almost kind of sound which is cool to experience.
After Vampire came Revolutionary in 2010. Starting of with the really short 49 second track "Lovecall From the World" you could tell this was going to be a fun one. Making use of their resident screamer/bassist you get some of that really rough sound that just sets the tone of the entire album. By the way, screaming is totally acceptable in music, personally I find that it adds an interesting texture to a lot of tracks. However, it can be overused and painful in excess. Just putting that out there. Back to Revolutionary though, I personally find it to be their best album so far. From Vampire to Revolutionary, their sound got polished a lot and while the album is more mainstream sounding, it's a testament to their ability to get better and cleaner. All the while they maintain the same traits that made me turn my head in the first place, clear and interesting instrumentals and a sound that honestly is just plain fun to listen to. If I were to highlight only two tracks on the album though, I would go with the title track "Revolutionary" and the eighth track "Finder" which is just a funky and awesome track.
Continuing on is my least favorite of their albums Movement. Released just a year after Revolutionary, I found the sound lacking and muddled. Not only that, it sounded even more mainstream and tame than Revolutionary and I found myself thinking, "did they run out of steam, is this all they've got?" Don't get me wrong, there are good tracks like "新しい光" (Atarashii Hikari) and "Monday" but overall I found the mixing lackluster and the tracks muddy instead of the clarity in Revolutionary.
On a much better note though is their newest album Dawning which was released in June 2013. Overall, the album isn't the most cohesive but individual tracks are quite good. More importantly, they branched away from the really kind of stale mainstream-ish sound of Movement. With tracks like "Wild West Mustang" and the last track "The Silence" 9mm Parabellum Bullet proves that they're still capable of doing new things and making interesting tracks. With the track "Answer and Answer" they prove that they can continue to find inspiration in their old sound and make new tracks with that same drive and power. Also in "The Silence" they show that they can look way back and leverage disparate musical lineage in the chord progression of the Prelude to Bach's first Unaccompanied Cello Suite to evoke a strong connection to the past in an original and modern context. Given more time, I might rate Dawning higher than Revolutionary but for sure it is a strong album and definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.
Anyways what have we learned about my musical tastes so far? I like pretty much everything if you can make it interesting to me. I enjoy vocals but I enjoy vocals with interesting backgrounds much more. I'm not afraid to listen to things with lyrics I can't understand. Most importantly I care about and enjoy music that understands that it is music and that it can be intellectually stimulating and isn't superficial or formulaic without reason. I apparently couldn't post a crossfade for this on SoundCloud and I don't want to infringe on copyrights as much as possible, but if you like rock music, or even not, definitely check them out. Until next time.
P.S. There's no recording because I'm apparently terrible at this talking thing.
--CsMiREK
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