Kyoto, Japan-based punk quartet Otoboke Beaver make anti-love songs with no time for sadness or longing. Instead, they are fueled by a rage so ferocious it’s thrilling to behold, like watching an exhausted athlete dig deep to overtake the frontrunner in the final 200 meters. The band’s latest release, Itekoma Hits, is an album of unwavering “no”s shrieked over gnarly guitar riffs and frantic drums, a tornado of defiance at the prospect of romance, monotonous office work, and people who feel entitled to women’s time. Hurtling through 14 songs in 27 minutes, it burns like a sore throat and blazes like a brittle tree doused in kerosene.
The album’s songs are less narratives than slivers of raw fury directed at hyper-specific situations. The title of one demands, “Introduce Me to Your Family,” while the 18-second closer simply asks, “What time did you say you’d come back today?! Mean.” Otoboke Beaver’s lyrics make heavy use of repetition, sometimes reiterating a line four or five times in a row. Nowhere is this more pointed than on “I’m Tired of Your Repeating Story,” where the repetitious form and frenetic guitar evoke the mind-scrambling agitation of listening to someone launch into an anecdote for the umpteenth time: “Bored receptionist like a corpse/My ears are bleeding/My ears are bleeding.” Similarly, “6 Day Work Week Is a Pain” employs repetition to simulate the tedium of an unfulfilling desk job, ending on a series of facetious “thank you”s followed by a snarled, “Fuck you!”
As a band, Otoboke Beaver work together seamlessly, building tension with lead vocalist Accorinrin’s winding solos and releasing it in teeth-gnashing group vocals. Album opener “datsu.hikage no onna” begins with Accorinrin’s croons of “I hate you” as she laments being a “woman in the shadows.” When the rest of the band joins in, the sentiment is unified and powerful, as if bolstered by an army of women who have all felt this way. These more melodic vocals, though rarer and rougher around the edges, are expertly deployed. On highlight “Bad Luck,” lyrics sung in rounds depict the blossoming of new love with cynical suspense, knowing nothing can stay sweet for long.
Itekoma Hits’ most vivid imagery centers around food and eating. On “S’il vous plait,” “pork bits” is slang for male genitalia. Elsewhere, a wife’s home-cooked meal becomes a symbol of unattainable love and respect in the eyes of her husband’s scorned mistress. And on “Binge Eating Binge Drinking Bulimia,” Otoboke Beaver sing about an emotional reaction to unrequited love that balances frustration and shock value, toeing the line between bold and messy. In the rare moments when the band loses focus, their brazen energy can slip into overwhelming commotion. At times, the spontaneity that defines their songs feels like it isn’t building to any final revelation.
Still, their music evokes a deep sense of joy. Otoboke Beaver have said that they are not feminists, telling The Japan Times last year, “We don’t try to sing about women’s rights or women’s issues in our music, we’ve never talked about it.” But intention is not always the same as impact; even if their music is not explicitly feminist, there is power in hearing a group of four Asian women say exactly what they want. Listening to these songs, it is simply assumed that we have the confidence, security, freedom, and poise to confront those who have wronged us, to turn down love and sex that doesn’t fully satisfy us, and to demand better. In Otoboke Beaver’s world, loneliness is holy and anger is a beautiful, terrifying spectacle.
