What's the point of this? It's not as if the kind of music I usually write about for Pitchfork is much more coherent than Japan's Mong Hang, but at least it's usually less frustrating. The music here is not so much impressive as it is calculatedly eclectic and raw. Of course, I've come to expect progressive rock flourishes and heavy-handed virtuosity from bands of this sort, and the celebrity connections are right on time (drummer Atsushi Tanaka has played with Acid Mothers Temple). And just as the worst thing you can say of the Acid Mothers is that they sound like the a thousand other psychedelic jam bands, but juiced up on steroids, Mong Hang, at their worst, merely sound like a second rate Acid Mothers or one of many Tatsuya Yoshida projects. That's a shame because at their best, they're a good poor man's symphonic prog band-- something like Gentle Giant being forced to use Tom Waits' instruments and Gary Wilson's budget.
I'll start with the good stuff: the opener, "Bi," begins with some broken-English emceeing and a boisterous tympani roll which bursts into good old fashioned pomp-rock fanfare, not unlike what Queen thrust on the world before they got rich. The drums are loud and distorted, pounding out entire orchestral percussion parts, and the vocals are pure operatic shout-song. It's probably as bombastic as they could muster, but since I doubt their advance could cover Roy Thomas Baker's shoe polish, the overwhelming effect is fairly quaint. "Orange Seximo" is the first of a few tunes to feature Mong Hang's secret weapon: the steel drums. Percussionist Yohei Bohemian plays a melody on them that sounds close to traditional Japanese, and background vocalists 'la-la' their way through some nice helium-voiced counterpoint. About midway through, the guitars crash in, and Mong Hang becomes Ruins, Jr., but the brief acoustic does offer a glimpse into the startling refined musicianship on display.
Bassist Keitaimo Wuja Bin Bin wrote most of the music here. I haven't seen his name around anywhere else, but from what I gather, beyond the usual avant-prog-psyche elements, he seems to have a preference for epic concepts. Many of the tunes share motives, bringing back a familiar melody here or a hard groove there. Of course, this is old hat for proggers, but Mong Hang's greatest accomplishment appears to have been making their music seem a lot more simple than it actually is. "Mangcha" brings out Waits' marimba and drunken waltz beat, almost fooling me into thinking they'd go for the bizarro pomp again, but soon enough, the helium vocals are back, and son of junior Ruins makes an appearance. And then they break into a Santana-style Latin rock solo section. They sound like good enough players, but the overriding goofiness threatens to tumble all their hard work into a round of laffs. This effectively kills momentum in legitimate prog symphonies like "Mountains II: Harasu," and might keep folks from staying tuned until the last tune, "Gommos," a ruggedly pretty traditional Japanese ballad.
The absolute worst? Try "Mesopotamia," wherein Mong Hang attempts to transcend third-rate cartoon music by injecting fake kids' vocals and a limp polka beat. If that doesn't sway you, then try "Sap Alan on the Tellial," which may actually the best thing to ever repeat the same grating line of verse 100 times and feature Elmo on lead vocals. The otherworldly percussion coda comes too late to save me from TV Land psychosis. But as much as I'd like to ignore tunes like that, I'm afraid they're only symptoms of a greater call to clowning that draws the band. You can be sure they tear it up live, and parts of this album have doubtlessly planted the seed of curiosity in my head enough to at least download whatever they come up with next. Here's hoping it's more jam and less ham.
