With this disc I was hoping for a Chinese Brainiac or French Fushitsusha; somehow though I got (yet another) Japanese Jesus Lizard. Hey, at least these guys are better than Mexican Radiohead. Kid Aye!
There's plenty to like about My Way My Love. This Tokyo trio rocks sludgy basslines and squirmy could-be-brilliant chromatic guitar riffs like the best Sonic Youth rips out there. Lovers will enjoy "Captain"-- textbook hard 90s college rock, tuneless but with a drummer who's confident as fuck, as well as "Sports", which is he same song as "Captain" but with klaxon sirens and heavy-handed quiet-loud, and "Sound Of Gold", an accidental tribute to the Slint reunion tour. Haters will hate these tracks, for essentially the same reasons. Come on haters, aren't you at least somewhat charmed by this trans-Pacific indie rock/J-rock romance, a thing I may have just made up? Maybe you just don't like guitars anymore?
Forget you. If the heavy stuff's too much grief-- definitely can't dance to it, eww neww-- MWML also have several short, fast songs to keep your attention. One song, "Nanisuru?", is six seconds long. Another, "Jinxxxxxxxxxxsix", is 16. Both are pretty amazing, all things considered, and very danceable. In fact, if someone heard these songs and said the band reminded him of Devo or (wait for it) Ex Models, I wouldn't protest.
On songs slightly less short and fast, this band can and will kill things. "Reykjavik 69"-- a steadily compounding mache with thick sheets of dense drum circlejerk percussion-- is the only Gang Gang Dance track you'll ever need to hear (kidding). Granted, the guitar parts on tracks like "Ovo" and "Superfresh" sell tough without the kickass traps behind it, but hey, indie rock's a fickle mistress, and she only sleeps with drummers.
And so as not to spite me completely, My Way My Love do include a fake Brainiac song, and obviously it's the best song on the record. The big riff on "Un" stays with the song across tempo changes, and the wet production and mids-only bass make good on us nostalgics-- almost as good as when the lead singer works in his mightiest Tim Taylor robot voice. Hey, I'll take what I can get.
