June 13, 2004
Kokeshi Doll | Pirukorui |Benten | Japan
buy it
Kokeshi Doll put on one of the best shows I've seen in 2004 when they played Chicago recently. Their dark and dramatic style of noise rock was riveting onstage but I was unsure how it would survive the translation into ones and zeroes--putting across on disc the band's extreme dynamics and Naomi Okuyama's vocal theatricality would be no small feat. But from the opening notes of Pirukorui it's clear that Kokeshi Doll explore the studio with the same confidence and mastery they exhibit live.
The label calls Pirukorui a "mini album," as it clocks in at a mere 38 minutes. I say there's nothing "mini" about it. In this age of bloated, shitty CDs, we need more bands that hone their songs, say their piece and shut up. Every song counts on this disc--how many recent 60+ minute releases could support that claim?
The world of these eight songs is one in which noise offsets quiet and melody offsets angst. The darkness and theatricality in the songs isn't the cartoony goth variety of Visual Kei bands, its something more raw and true. At times Okuyama's amazing voice is engineered more like a lead guitar than a lead vocal-- it's panned, flanged, filtered and distorted. Too often, such studio trickery is meant to obscure the fact that there's very little emerging from the source, but not in the case of Kokeshi Doll. Okuyama is a fountainhead of emotion and guts and the effects are simply part of the band's obvious love of sound exploration.
Hopefully, their next release will include a translation of the lyrics, but even in the absence of that, this band manages to communicate volumes.
Posted by Mack Hagood at June 13, 2004 01:14 PM