Polysics - Polysics or Die!!!!

Band: Polysics
Album: Polysics or Die!!!!
Country: Japan
Release Date: 2005

Polysics aren't cute, and they don't have their own cartoon show. (Although it might be interesting -- I'm thinking Ren & Stimpy, but weirder.) What they do have is a thoroughly original, bizzarely entertaining sound.
What do they sound like? A friend of mine suggested techno punk, but that description is too glib. Imagine the bastard child of Devo and a hardcore punk group, fronted by a guy who, umm, hasn't been keeping up with his meds, and you start to get the idea.
The music is braindead fun, spastic, and thoroughly addictive. Chief Polysic Hiroyuki Hayashi (once known only as Poly-1) mugs and wails off key over a bed of thrashing guitars, bleeping synthesizers, and the sugary sweet harmonies of keyboardist Kayo and bassist Fumi. The few non-Japanese songs are more Engrish than English, but it all fits somehow. This isn't brain surgery music.
Sure, Hayashi's over-the-top style can wear on you, and they do love their vocoders. Some songs don't work -- a "live in the studio" re-recording of the single "Black Out Fall Out" (found on Japan For Sale Vol 3, for the curious) introduces unnecessary elements and loosens the songs tight charm. But the sped up, vocoded cover of "My Sharona" deserves to be on everyone's list of alltime bizzare songs, and numbers like "Kaja Kaja Goo", "Lookin' Looin' Gaa" (with its childlike verse chants), "Peach Pie On The Beach" (just TRY not singing along -- pippikippippippi!) and "Code4" really do show off the band at its hyperactive, geeky finest.

1. Buggie Technica
2. Hot Stuff
3. New Wave Jacket
4. Plus Chicker
5. Kaja Kaja Goo
6. Black Out Fall Out
7. My Sharona
8. Making Sense
9. Lookin’ Lookin’ Gaa
10. Commodoll
11. For Young Electric Pop
12. XCT
13. Peach Pie on the Beach
14. Each Life Each End
15. Code 4
16. Modern
17. Urge On !!
18. ENO

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