If you can leave behind the pesky reverence to the genres they swipe from, you might have as much fun as Ninja High School do on their debut. Stealing the party vibe from Golden Age hip-hop and the bratty arrogance of church-basement hardcore, Ninja High School leave the weight behind and make an album with a sharp ear and a positive, inclusive atmosphere.
From the first track of Young Adults Against Suicide, atonal mechanized bleeps bump uglies with funk basslines, and hip-hop beats meet with hardcore shouts-- all behind a barrel of quirky vocal samples. "Jam Band Death Cult" is a smooth, crafty pastiche of laid-back horns, gentle piano, and foot-tapping beats. There are barbershop quartet harmonies on a chorus about people wasting the band's time, while the group shouts, "Shut the fuck up/ This is what's up" through distorted mics with as much arrogance as exuberance.
The music is strangely buried in the mix, covered in a nostalgic haze, so it's the tag-team rapping and shouting that makes or breaks the record. To that end, the group displays more competence than personality. What are they shouting about? Not much. Jabber about who's the best band in the land, who's going home in ambulance, where the fucking party is at, and so on. They get close to a manifesto on "Feverish Dream" (opening with a line about crucifying Ian Mackaye and burying the Velvet Underground once and for all), but politics are not the band's strong suit. The glitch-addled tribute to Harry Belafonte on "Nap" is probably more sincere. Young Adults Against Suicide doesn't say "Let's tear walls and preconceptions down," it says "Party all right good times let's go fuck yeah." (Just look at it as an acronym-- "YAAS!") It's the irreverent spirit that translates more than the content, and it works when the end result a party record, no less and no more.
The first few tracks establish the modus operandi, and the band becomes progressively more daring toward the record's center. After the aforementioned "Nap", "Shake it Off" merges the bassline from Talking Heads' "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)" with a ridiculously long ad-libbed scream, while asking the crowd to "let the fucking sunshine in" and then, of course, to shake-shake-shake-shake-shake-shake it off. With a little more emphasis on finding great beats instead of being the number one party-starters, the record could have avoided petering out in the final third. Not that there's any horrific missteps, or even a change in approach; It's just that the sugar rush has dissipated before the 12th track comes around.
