If you knew absolutely nothing about indie music and were to read every Polysics review written in the last five years, you'd think Japan was holding the ultimate doomsday device in some sort of retro-rock arms race. While on the whole American indie audiences usually gloss over Tokyo's finest new wave spaz act, the critical response reads frenetic, with epithets like "loudest album of the year" or "ADHD geeks on steroids" tossed around in anticipation of a Polysics U.S. takeover. Obviously, this Japanese invasion hasn't materialized, and Now Is the Time!, despite its hopeful title, reflects this stagnation as the band's least progressive and least risk-taking release to date.
Polysics never met the accepted standard for today's hipster "cool," but their previous efforts at least contained residual elements of endearing 1990s spaz and surf rock bands like Brainiac, Girls Against Boys, and Man Or Astro-Man? Time! relegates those elements to a more marginal ad hoc role, instead focusing on more by-the-book new wave pop. Don't get me wrong, these numbers twitch and jerk in accordance to the band's cultish devotion to Devo, but the spasms come more predictably now. "Tei! Tei! Tei!" feels way too straightforward vis-a-vis previous Polysics album openers. While "Go Ahead Now!" and "Bugga Techinica" romped ominously through skewed power chords and unstable synth lines, "Tei!" sounds overly eager to establish a conventional verse/chorus structure, kicking off the album on unusually even-keel footing for the band.
In lieu of cataclysmic rawk-outs, the band does stitch together some subtle yet catchy post-punk ditties, harkening back to XTC almost as much as their go-to touchstone Devo. "I My Me Mine" and "Walky Talky" percolate in the same cauldron Drums and Wires warmed up in the late 70s, modernizing the sound with mounds of synth and sound effects. On the pop front, keyboardist/vocalist Kayo contributes her most saccharine new wave gems yet, recalling reggae-induced Blondie on "Wild One" and unabashedly copping Toni Basil sing-song on the oh-so-gooey "Baby Bias".
Excepting these instances, most of Time! rockets through the same cyclical beats and back-and-forth riffs, smooshing together several tracks at a time into a heaping blob of new wave jitters. As a band equally willing to tap the Mario Brothers Theme as Remain in Light, Polysics sound fun because they typically take the risks most American and British-bred retro painstakingly avoid. Unfortunately Time! forgets this, pulling back way too many punches. Sure, the time-tested formula delivers as expected, but ultimately the rote freakout leaves you wishing the band could bring the hammer down like it used to.
